Well, I'm definitely trying to ease myself back into it! I've actually mostly cut social media out of my life. I'm not active on Facebook, I'm on a private account on twitter where I never post anything, and I'm trying to stop using Tumblr as much. I found that my time there was mostly spent just idly scrolling, and I've just reached a point in my life where I'm kind of tired of just passively consuming content all day without having anything to show for it at the end. It feels...weirdly isolating? Like, I'm not talking to any of those people. I'm not part of a community, and that's what I miss.

The last time I really remembered feeling that was, well, here. I'd tried to come back a couple of times, but I just wasn't at the right place in my life yet, y'know? I'm really happy that Menewsha's return matched up to when I was in a place to come back too . I'm a bit of a wordy bugger, and I like feeling like I can take my time with responding. I'm not racing against the clock to be heard, y'know? And there's a lot less risk of someone taking what I'm saying, reading the worst possible thing they can into it, and then judging me based on what they think I've said, which I've had happen on a lot of shorter-form social media.

I do feel like the way I word things is a little more awkward than it used to be? I'm hoping that'll smooth out as I get used to having the space to say as many words as I want, but only time will tell I'm definitely going to have to unlearn the feeling that no one cares about what I have to say, if that makes sense? Re-learn to trust that people will take the time to read my whole message, maybe even multiple times, in order to construct a response.

Oh oh!! And being able to quote multiple responses and respond to multiple people in a thread! I love that feature and have missed it so much. I don't want to have six different branching conversations nestled in on themselves without any context of the greater discussion! (looking at you tumblr) I want them to be contained in one post!

oh no, social burnout is such a huge problem for me too . It's actually the biggest reason I'm not on most social media anymore The cycle of "be active, get overwhelmed, stop being active, feel bad about not being active, recover, be active, etc" is something I get trapped in constantly. The nicest thing for me about forums is that there's a much slower expectation? I'm hoping that'll help my burnout because I won't feel that pressure of like "Oh no it's been a single day, they're gonna be so mad I didn't see this D:" which is how so many other sites or places feel to me.

Oooh, the content creator struggle is an awful one to get trapped in For a while I was looking at doing something similar, but I've watched so many friends fall into that pit of like, constantly having to hustle and market themselves, and I ended up realizing that if I tried, I'd lose my hobbies and burn out too quickly. I hope you're taking care of yourself! Glad you're trying to find spaces you can just chill and hang out without feeling that pressure.

And deffo agree on the lack of infinite scroll being a plus side! There are landmarks! Natural stopping points my beloved

Character limits! Fast conversation! The worst!! They're nice sometimes, but so often I get lost in the dust because I'm just sitting there like, "What do you mean you don't want to talk about all the fascinating facts or specifics about this thing? Wait we're on a new topic already? We just GOT here!!" and then I end up sitting there like :< because I had an anecdote or story I wanted to tell but the conversation moved on so now it's weird to say!