Sometimes I find it hard to know whether a certain feeling is valid, or if it's something else entirely.
What I mean, I guess, is sometimes I wonder if I actually even miss the things I think I miss, or if I just want some easy content when I'm awake at two in the morning scrolling and am trying not to get out of bed.
I think whatever I'm missing about my time on social media is the latter.
Whenever I've checked in on the accounts on Bluesky (or elsehwere on the internet) that I think I miss, I'm quickly reminded as to why I stopped in the first place.
- I certainly don't miss the eternal return of the same discourse over and over again.
- I definitely don't miss factions and teams that unfailingly emerge to both cause and that result from this discourse.
- I don't miss the pick-me types and the "hovers off the ground in enlightenment" sorts either.
- I don't miss the constant and pervading sense that you're going to get face full of 4Chan-grade and Tumblr-grade aggro in some bad-faith conflict-harvesting.
- I don't miss the numerous accounts - both bot and human - that conflate sharing every piece of bad news from around the world or producing floods of Facebook-style AI slop memes as effective political activism.
And it's not even a certain sort of social media. Following the Trans March in August, I joined a trans Discord. I might have lasted two weeks, but had lost interest in about a day or two after a few participants had a four-alarm meltdown over clanker.
What I found was a very young audience that was extremely online. When the participant wasn't young, they invariably sounded like self-loathing and disappointed trans people you find in the worst subreddits or /tttt.
On the one hand, I really get it.
Things are really frightening out there, and Canada is neither immune to indulging in the same transphobia as elsewhere, nor is the country particularly strong in its dedication trans rights. Just like in the US and the UK, a small well-funded group would be able to cause a whole lot of damage without any real response. It has happened before and it will happen again. Charter or no Charter.
On the other hand, we won't survive this if we do the job for them.
That is, building up our own terror and despair would be to do the job for the people who hate us and wish to break us. I don't see the value in acting for the other side by endlessly scrolling through the morass of a world's worth of active and growing transphobia.
It may be trite (and my middle name), but I want more trans joy.
**
I think what I did have in the world of social media wasn't community in any real way.
It might have been possible that it could have become so, but at best, I think it was an internet-mediated parasocial thing, like hoping for a ♥ or repost from that bigger account you like to follow. Or even worse, it was nothing other than an artifact of social media's smooth customer experience.
In other words, you're only a member so long as your words (or photos or sounds) are served up to - and reach - others. If they're not, you don't exist.
What I would really like is more of a sense of community in real life. While social media has had an impact in this space too (try finding queer events in Ottawa without being on Instagram), it's not insurmountable.
For one, while I'd love to spend more time with other trans people, I'd prefer to spend time with trans people while on a photo walk or doing some other hobby together.
I think there will be more on that in the new year though.
December 15, 2025