The thing is, though, any open platform is going to have some major problems like that. Just by virtue of being open. I'm not saying that to absolve Twitter, certainly -- they aren't doing nearly enough -- but there's always going to be some contigent of garbage that wants to barge in and screw things up for everybody because they're just awful people.
Life is kind of like that, though. You meet folks -- through school or work or mutual friends or whatever -- and some of them just are bad people. The problem is that the internet speeds up and amplifies everything, so instead of the one jackass you have to deal with for eight hours a day at work, you've got a couple dozen jackasses to deal with 24/7 online.
The flip side to that is that you can connect with some pretty amazing people that you might not otherwise meet because of geography! I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that in the small town I grew up with, comics fandom consisted mostly of just me. (This was obviously pre-internet.) So I didn't really join a comics community of any sort until I was well into my 20s!
But let's say you're in a small town like that AND you can't stand being on Twitter because of all the bullshit. The thing is that you can still join a comics community. Maybe it's at the local comic shop. Maybe you don't have a local comics shop, so you meet with some fans at the local library. Maybe you're too isolated to get to a library, you can talk with people on venues OTHER than social media. There are still old school message boards out there! Hell, the one I helped moderate back in the 1990s is still around! You can build your own site and host your own community -- that's what most webcomikers do!
My point is that there are a ton of avenues to connect with other comics folks! That was something I didn't really understand as a kid. I didn't understand why that was important or how to even go about it. But today, in 2020, there are plenty of opportunities. Both in person and online! And you don't have to deal with all the bullshit on Twitter to connect with folks! But find your people! There's no reason you can't, and a million reasons why you should! If you can't find some folks in comicdom that don't share your particular enthusaisms, you ain't looking!
1 comments:
Twitter is so obviously a different experience for white men vs. others.
Last week, I think even on the same day, our mayor and a council member independently expressed support for Biden on Twitter. The male council member (who has more followers) got zero replies. The female mayor drew resentful complaining from multiple privileged asshole men.
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