For example, I can see with a short scroll how a person reacted to the 2016 election and if they responsibly masked in 2020 or descended into conspiracy paranoia.

The continuity of Facebook is a good litmus test.

I’ll try Bluesky. I’m grateful for it.

But I’ll hold the line on Facebook.

So unless everyone I love leaves Facebook, I’m staying. I know the names & profiles, and I have chat history & comment threads with people I’m going to need to be able to tap. Plus with new people, I can scroll through their photos and feeds and know at a glance roughly who they are.

Are we just supposed to start over again completely, just as our communities are fractured? And then, somehow find communities & friends that took 15 years to build, right when our unity is more crucial than ever? It took Hitl*r 55 days to dismantle Germany. Project 2025 is 3 days into its attack.

But I hate the Instagram platform. It’s anonymous and it sucks for writing blocks of text (clearly I’m a person who needs long blocks of text). It also sucks for finding friends. Everyone has cute user names, and seldom use recognizable profile pictures. And since it’s owned by MET now what?!

FB used to mostly show me what my friends were up to (now we sift through algorithmic pages & misinformation.)

So for the last few years it’s looked like I’ll have to do leave Facebook and go to Instagram.

I once built an entire community on MySpace, but left it to go to Facebook. For a while, FB was great! I could create & share events for my band and in 2016 it easily helped hundreds of thousands of people invite each other to weekly protests against Tr*mp. (So they took away the invite function).

And what then? Do we hide in the attic?

Or do we f*cking stay, say, “I belong here, and f*ck you assholes?”

Powerful poem. I love Langston Hughs.