- Pronouns
- they/them
Greetings fellow Famiboardites,
So, as some of you may have noticed by now, the state of social media recently has been a bit of a shitshow, with Twitter (I'm not calling it anything else) especially going down the drain in a myriad of ways. For some people, this has been funny. For some it's been mildly irritating. For some, it hasn't been noticeable (I envy you).
But for some others, especially creatives (any kinds of artists, journalists, streamers, reviewers, etc), and more generally, people who depend on social media for visibility, including professionally, this has been a complete nightmare. Parts of the audience are leaving social media entirely. Parts are leaving specific sites and restarting their follow list from scratch elsewhere. Parts are staying on the sites that creatives are leaving and not branching out anywhere else. Sometimes, the audience is miraculously still there, but The Algorithms
have decided to stop showing them the work of people they follow.
Thankfully, Famiboards, as a fairly niche forum, is pretty exempt from this, and mostly just watching from the sidelines.
I suggest using its situation as a way to do a little to help out all the creators who are having a rough time of it, sometimes having to restart from scratch on sites with pretty lacking discovery tools, and no existing networks for them.
What does this actually entail, though?
For creatives/people who make stuff:
(toggle BB code first to type this - you can toggle back after)
Use the template above to tell us a little about what you do, and drop your socials. As many as you want, as obscure as you want. Content-oriented websites (Youtube, Twitch, DeviantArt, etc) as well. Like, throw in your Neocities or other custom website if you have one. Try not to include more than one image (and of a reasonable size), unless it's behind spoilers, so people don't have to scroll through a lot. I'll include my own in a later post, in case bits of the template are unclear. In general I would recommend against linking to Twitter given that it's probably in its death throes right now, but I won't stop you.
If your socials only contain 100% SFW content, disregard the following spoiler section.
For the audience (and creatives who want to find other people):
Go through this thread (I'll try to keep profiles threadmarked, with help from @VolcanicDynamo ), and if anyone does anything that seems up your alley, give them a follow on whatever websites you use. Hell, pick up new sites too if one seems interesting. Get an RSS reader (if anyone has good recommendations for one, I'll add it here) if you want everything in one place and don't plan on interacting. Remember that reblogging (or whatever each site calls it) makes a huge difference for a lot of people and that even just likes/favorites mean a lot.
Bonus - Useful tools
Since we'll be threadmarking profiles, feel free to have as much chatter as you want. I assume there'll probably be discussions/questions about various sites, especially some of the lesser-known ones, which will probably also be helpful for a lot of people. Feel free to share other useful tools as well if you know any, we'll add them to the OP too.
Here's hoping everyone finds something they like in here!
So, as some of you may have noticed by now, the state of social media recently has been a bit of a shitshow, with Twitter (I'm not calling it anything else) especially going down the drain in a myriad of ways. For some people, this has been funny. For some it's been mildly irritating. For some, it hasn't been noticeable (I envy you).
But for some others, especially creatives (any kinds of artists, journalists, streamers, reviewers, etc), and more generally, people who depend on social media for visibility, including professionally, this has been a complete nightmare. Parts of the audience are leaving social media entirely. Parts are leaving specific sites and restarting their follow list from scratch elsewhere. Parts are staying on the sites that creatives are leaving and not branching out anywhere else. Sometimes, the audience is miraculously still there, but The Algorithms
have decided to stop showing them the work of people they follow.Thankfully, Famiboards, as a fairly niche forum, is pretty exempt from this, and mostly just watching from the sidelines.
I suggest using its situation as a way to do a little to help out all the creators who are having a rough time of it, sometimes having to restart from scratch on sites with pretty lacking discovery tools, and no existing networks for them.
What does this actually entail, though?
For creatives/people who make stuff:
(toggle BB code first to type this - you can toggle back after)
Code:
[b]Name(s):[/b] your usual online handle, maybe your other handles
[b]What you make:[/b] stuff, a picture if relevant
[b]Where we can find you:[/b][URL='website.com/your_name']site_name[/URL], etcUse the template above to tell us a little about what you do, and drop your socials. As many as you want, as obscure as you want. Content-oriented websites (Youtube, Twitch, DeviantArt, etc) as well. Like, throw in your Neocities or other custom website if you have one. Try not to include more than one image (and of a reasonable size), unless it's behind spoilers, so people don't have to scroll through a lot. I'll include my own in a later post, in case bits of the template are unclear. In general I would recommend against linking to Twitter given that it's probably in its death throes right now, but I won't stop you.
If your socials only contain 100% SFW content, disregard the following spoiler section.
However, if you have social media accounts that:
- Are mainly SFW but contain some NSFW content
- Have a SFW username
- Are properly indicated as containing NSFW content (just a "this link contains NSFW content" is fine)
- And you do not post anything NSFW in this thread, whether it be text or images or embeds or anything else. Use preview if you're not sure how an embed will look.
For the audience (and creatives who want to find other people):
Go through this thread (I'll try to keep profiles threadmarked, with help from @VolcanicDynamo ), and if anyone does anything that seems up your alley, give them a follow on whatever websites you use. Hell, pick up new sites too if one seems interesting. Get an RSS reader (if anyone has good recommendations for one, I'll add it here) if you want everything in one place and don't plan on interacting. Remember that reblogging (or whatever each site calls it) makes a huge difference for a lot of people and that even just likes/favorites mean a lot.
Bonus - Useful tools
- For migrating from Twitter to Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, or other ActivityPub sites (as either creative or audience), you can use Fedifinder to see if anyone you're currently following has links to those sites in their profile (requires logging in via Twitter)
- If you've recently moved to Mastodon and are looking for more accounts to follow, Followgraph suggests new accounts based on the follows of people you're already following (does not require logging in, only uses public follow lists)
Since we'll be threadmarking profiles, feel free to have as much chatter as you want. I assume there'll probably be discussions/questions about various sites, especially some of the lesser-known ones, which will probably also be helpful for a lot of people. Feel free to share other useful tools as well if you know any, we'll add them to the OP too.
Here's hoping everyone finds something they like in here!
