I'm Having a Good Time Over Here, Actually, p1: Some Stuff I Use

In my quest on making my online experience a better place, I do the occasional tweaking. I've been chasing that high of browsing GameFAQs, making friends on LiveJournal, and having an online girlfriend on MapleStory--

wait hang on

OnlyBookwyrm

I've straight up deleted my TheStoryGraph account. Why? It was a polished platform with the best 1:1 ratio to GoodReads. But it had a lot of AI features that I just didn't care to use (and skimmed right over), and I had a nagging "something is missing" feeling about using the thing. Renkon pointed this out waaaay back in May:

On StoryGraph, I felt weirdly sealed off from seeing what my friends were reading, and in general I got book recs from the site itself and not from whatever my friends were into. Which, again… is fine if that’s what you want… but in my case, I might as well just log my books on a spreadsheet and then talk about them on Mastodon.

--We Need Diverse Books

And you know the fuck what? That was it! I was adding all these cool people I bump into offline, but then... I rarely saw their activity. I never got recommendations from them. And I don't interact with anyone until I'm a couple of clicks deep in some unintuitive way. None of it felt organic. All of it felt, well, to quote Renkon again:

This looks designed from the ground up to be fed into an algorithm or AI, not the social-media-plus-book-tracking that made apps like Goodreads so popular.

I wasn't connecting with people, let alone reading their thoughts about things. So I cut it, and I'm just on Bookwyrm now. I don't think anyone would even notice.

If, for whatever reason I decide to not participate in the social aspect of reading stuff online, there's Bookmory or just keeping my own spreadsheet (hell no).

So, be friends with me over there.

Collaborate (on OSM) or Die Straight

Occasionally I'll get my knickers in a knot and do something crazy like switch away from another Google App. This time, it's Maps. I've had OSM of some sort as a sort of "backup" if I'm somewhere with no signal, but now I've actively made a switch.

You can read all about OpenStreetMap on their official website. And there are some mobile apps that you can use along with it:

• TomTom AmiGo (thanks for the rec, Urrlich!) has been great for traffic updates and getting around the urban areas in a car.
• OsmAnd has been great, and what I've ultimately settled on due to having plugins and offline maps.
• CoMaps gets an honorable mention from me, too, despite it not quite fitting my Android Auto use case (lacked the driving QoL stuff, for example). But I bet it is awesome for hiking and biking.

There is this collaborative aspect to the whole thing. I put in what I can, and someone would follow after me and tweak/fix something. And I'd see outdated info on a favorite haunt and update it myself.

Bonus: I would totally drive XX miles to eat grilled trout.

YouTube Pissed Off the Video Subscriber

Another on the chopping block is YouTube. God, I am so sick of YouTube, but I'm still on that freakin' app. I love my video essays. But I need to stop rewarding them for their bad behavior, like:

• demonetizing for people speaking of their marginalized experiences
• pushing alt-right bullshit
• messing with creator's money streams with undisclosed backend changes
• all those fucking ads
• and the lengths they'll go to punish users with adblock
• did I mention the ads?
• general scumbag Google behavior
• general scumbag genAI behavior
• the absolute mess of the algorithm

So, yeah. Biggest contender is Nebula; most of my faves are there! And there are BIPOC creators there, wtf was that James guy on about!? Yes, there's a subscription but compared to YT or Amazon it's affordable (for me) at about $3 a month.

And of course, where and when you can, support your creatives on their other platforms of choice– a necessary move, generally, but especially because YouTube likes to dick around with people's money.

And if you still wanna see people that aren't anywhere else, there's NewPipe. And Tubular, for extra perks like SponsorBlock. And Vanced. And ReVanced. And if you still want to cast to your teevee? If you can install apps (where on smart tv or a Roku or something): look into SmartTube. And the web browser + UBlock Origin remains undefeated.

Various Other Habits

A Reddit Seacrest Type

sigh ... I miss Reddit. I mean, I miss all those communities. I mean, I miss longform forums. I mean, I miss all the comments of what other people are thinking. I mean, interacting and commenting on current events.

So when I don't cave and just browse via SafeReddit or something, I've a folder of "Online 3rd Spaces" I can visit instead. Heck, I even made one of those! It's been going well so far, and is even a bit slower and less chaotic-feeling.

Music Streaming

I have no shortage of music (knock on wood... and my backups) but I still enjoy coming across new releases or stuff that otherwise isn't in my library. And that's... okay, I'm looking into cutting off my dependence on YouTube Music. I can do this. I quit Spotify. I can do this!

I've bookmarked a ton of online radio streams and have a few apps/sites like

• Retro Games Radio
• Nightwave Plaza
• Rainwave
• Chilltrax
• Soma FM
• RadioGarden

And honestly, I'm terrified of looking into Pandora in case it fell into the unfortunate enshittified trap. That'd just break my heart. And I still don't know about Tidal.

Pour one out for Songza. Real ones know.

Shit I'm Still Doing

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

--Ancient Klingon Proverb

Doomscrolling

It's still real easy to do regardless of the platform I'm on. I can curate til the cows come home (and I do), but once I hit that doomy-groove it's hard to get out of. At least I'm in better company. And with Ground News, now I can have more informed doomscrolling. What a future! (And see, not all sponsors annoy the piss outta me!)

Reading

The only recent changes were

• switching to InoReader (personal preference; Feeder.co is also stellar)
• abandoning Pocket for
  • Instapaper (articles to read later)
  • Raindrop (everything else)

Wasting Time With Casual Games

The games that tend to stick around on my phone don't demand much brainpower. For my immersive, capital-g Gaming, I have the Switch for that.

Idle games are great for this, along with puzzle games. I even pick up the occasional gacha title until I either get bored or frustrated by paywalls– I just want the numbers to go up!

I recommend Cookie Clicker to scratch that itch. It is the only game that has stuck around. (Happy Color got the axe because of course they fucking did.)

Instagram (sort of)

Fucking Instagram. Unfortunately, that's where all the queers and activists are at, and if I want the date and time of the next kiki ball I gotta give it some attention– including having an account for when I get hit with the fucking "must log in to actually see shit" and I briefly wish for the account holder to stub their toe on a cactus.

When I'm not keeping tabs, I tell people about UpScrolled. It's like Instagram, but they won't shadowban your ass for supporting Palestine.

Seg-weh, or However You Say That

Which brings me to my usual plea of "GTFO the Zuck/Musk Apps PUL-LEASE." But that'll be a whole 'nother post of about an extra 1000 words or so. So we'll stop here!