Winning the Internet#
It’s a big internet out there, and most of it is terrible. I thought I’d share some of my methods for fighting back as an aging pseudo-techie.
Facebook#
Don’t trust anyone who drinks out of their own brand.
Less is less here, and less is good. Keeping in touch with people: good. Knowing where people might be so you can avoid them: good. Drunkenly ranting at anti-vaxxers and political fringe wackos: probably bad, but you’re already drunk so you’re going to do it anyway. I’ve muted everyone who doesn’t post timely news I should know about, or sufficiently entertaining comics. Most of my time on Facebook is spent ordering obscure cartoon mashups from TeeFury and watching Cyanide and Happiness.
Status: Winning
News#
Totally happened.
I scan the headlines on Google news once a day to answer two questions: is the world close enough to destruction to excuse going home early? and have they found out anything about space that involves a cool picture of a black hole? I legitimately do not understand why anyone cares about the rest of it.
Status: Winning
Twitter#
If there’s one picture that is Twitter, it’s this one.
I still don’t get Twitter. I’m bad at it, so I almost never do anything with it. Then I decided to follow a few people who had followed me, and one of them turned out to be a twenty-something non-binary cosplayer and Google engineer. Three likes later, Twitter starts showing me people they follow and like, who are a bunch of other cosplaying non-binary engineers and Twitch streamers. These people tweet a lot: my feed was overrun with engineering jokes and costumes that took more effort than I’ve put into the last thirty Halloweens combined. I figure I’m good here as long as I don’t touch anything.
Status: Won
Instagram#
Okay, this one’s a bit of a stretch.
I’m not sure what’s happening on Instagram. I guess there’s money in it? I think it causes selfies. Or brunch. I might be losing this one. Most of my feed is ex-girlfriends on vacation.
Status: Unknown
Reddit#
There is no way to know what will happen to you on Reddit. Could be nothing. Could be death threats. Could be awkwardly effusive praise. I leave maybe three comments a year. An ex-mercenary who believes in ghosts called me a loser. Three people told me I didn’t really exist. I keep my head down and mostly follow r/AmITheAsshole, r/LegalAdvice, and r/ShowerThoughts. So far I’ve learned people are assholes but worried about it, if they ask for cash it’s a scam, and someone else has had every clever thought I’ve ever had way before I did. Also, most of Buzzfeed is people copying popular Reddit threads, then making them worse with stupid captions.
Status: Cautiously entertained
Email#
There was a time when email was the scariest thing on the internet.
Some people are going for inbox zero or some other nonsense. I think my total unreads topped out at 1.2 million before I turned off the badge. Not much thought goes into most emails, why spend time worrying about them? At least three of my email addresses are retired, collecting scams and junk mail behind forgotten passwords.
Status: Winning
Privacy#
“Area Man Secures Privacy, Yells at Ball.”
Over. Everybody lost. I figure try to restrict what governments and companies can do, not what they can know, because they already know everything. Maybe find a cabin under dense foliage.
Status: Losing
Dating#
I forgot how many movies these two did together.
I worked at OkCupid for a couple of years. I went on a lot of dates and met my girlfriend, who lives with me. Now there’s Tinder. Tinder scares me. I can’t help with this one.
Status: Won just in time
Games#
Those of us that saw this at the kid’s real age acted just like him at his fake age when we hit it for real.
Two hours of Helldivers every Sunday with a drinking buddy. Occasional online games with my friends in Maine. Around November, I watch the last few months of Zero Punctuation and download the one he liked. Sometimes I finish it. Never, ever play against strangers, and if you must, mute the coms.
Status: Winning except when Max is playing Asuka
Notifications#
Some notifications are more important than others.
Turn them all off before they destroy your mind. The only things that can buzz my phone are texts and Slack.
Status: Winning
Slack#
That’s you, Slack. That’s what you sound like.
I do not know how to fight Slack without a time machine and a tire iron. I’ve developed a twitch reaction to the fractionally longer vibration my phone makes to distinguish a Slack message from a text. 30 percent of my working day is somehow consumed by Slack, even though only 10 of that 30 has anything to do with me, and 1 percent is telling people to be quiet and go back to using Slack. After leaving all the Trojan horses outside the gate in the twenty-year war for my attention, Slack brought corporate-mandated artillery and leveled the city. I fear Slack will undo me, laughing as I burn in the inferno of my hate.
Status: Losing
And that’s all the internet, afaik. Good luck!