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And I think it's going to get worse, for those of us out here on the edge. Tumblr's dead. Facebook and IG are write-offs at this point. Twitter's been the last platform where I felt like I had a decent shot at this kind of expression--and even here, I censored myself constantly.
But here's the agony for me: the communities we built on these platforms were *good*. So many of my friends are here. All I gotta do to keep in contact is... be less gay. Don't show S/M. Don't show skin. Careful of that "repeated violations" clause, cuz it might get ya.
And oh lord, there are a million ways to be queer and assimilation is not a dirty word in my book, even if it ain't for me. If button-down flannel is the skimpiest thing you want to wear, I wish you ALL the best. You can probably be that here.
There are new platforms out there, like newtumbl, which say they'll be friendlier, more sexually open. I don't know. I worry they'll run out of money, turn to ads, fall victim to the same pattern we've seen with Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram. And I worry about SESTA/FOSTA too.
I think if we're going to have a place to speak that's less subject to those pressures, it can't be a global corporate platform. We have to own the space ourselves. I also think gay people are gonna have to be the moderators for gay spaces, and leather people for leather spaces.
And there's this kinda cool thing called the Fediverse: a constellation of these little software neighborhoods, each running Mastodon, Pleroma, etc. They talk to each other. It's like distributed Twitter: you can follow people on your own instance, or anywhere else.
I've thought a lot about Christopher Alexander's writing on subculture boundaries, on the importance of semi-permeable social spaces, on how Twitter following networks kinda get at that, but not quite. I think Fediverse might be a good call. Independent, but not closed.
So I've registered a domain, and set up a Mastodon instance at https://woof.group . It's intended for LGBTQ+ leather people, but we'll federate broadly; anyone can follow from any Mastodon, et al instance. If you miss my tweets, I'll be here:https://woof.group/@aphyr
If you're into leather, and you'd like an account on http://woof.group itself, you're welcome to join me there. I'm covering hosting costs out of my own pocket, and I'm volunteering to moderate as well. See https://woof.group/about/more . It's been good, Twitter. Bye for now. <3
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