My wife likes TikTok, she's not on any other social media anymore except for that. I do have an account myself that I mostly use to watch videos she sends me.
But after being here, that app is even MORE jarring. I just hate that you open it and people are already yelling at you loudly. I just prefer text, I guess. With text, you can just read whatever you want (choice!) and easily scroll past stuff if you want to without reading it if you so choose, and you don't have actual yelling in your face.
I enjoy loud punk and brutal death metal, but that's by choice. It's different than hundreds or thousands of random assholes yelling at me, desperately trying to get my attention with vapid-seeming, weirdly put together videos on whatever topic. It's just so strange. I guess she learns stuff on there. It's too much for me.
I get the same awful feeling from YouTube yellers.
And then there's yelling from auto-playing previews on streaming services. With Netflix, you can turn that option off via desktop (a pain in the ass) but they WILL turn it back on anyway, ignoring your preference, as has happened to me now. It's awful. Another thing you can't even browse without getting constantly bombarded with loud, auto-playing previews.
I just like the chill quiet of Mastodon. Let me CHOOSE my loud music or media. I'm sick of being force-fed all the phony, excitable yelling garbage.
I don't watch videos unless it's entertainment. Like the new Wheel of Time season. I get all my news by reading it, so that the emotional impact of those delivering the news -- and the agenda implicit in their appeal to emotions -- is mitigated by the voice in my head that is presenting the information.
YouTube especially is trash IMO. The only thing I watch on YT is movie trailers (see "entertainment only"). The worst is all the "reaction vids" where some incel is clutching their pearls on the fainting couch over "go woke go broke" bullshit.
When someone else is watching videos, I get the "fight or flight" feeling. Put some fucking earphones in! I don't wanna fucking hear it... never mind WATCH it.
@notroot ugh. All of this. It's exhausting right? I can't. My YouTube is heavily curated like here- I really only see what I want and can usually avoid the nonsense. So glad to see others agree. It's crazy out there.
@jake4480 Yeah, I don't even have a YT account. I either search for the trailer I wanna watch, or more likely, I get sent a link from my buddy who does watch YT. (My Roku TV doesn't have YT installed, so this happens on my desktop in Firefox, or on my phone which is unfortunately Android so I can't uninstall YT.)
Currently, my only social media accounts are on the #fediverse -- this #firefish account, a #lemmy account (still boring, unfortunately) and a #pixelfed account (purely for hosting pics of my cat).
No FB, IG, or Threads. No TikTok. No Twitter, Bluesky, Post, etc. No Reddit. Haven't logged into LinkedIn in YEARS.
And, honestly? My internet experience is pretty great. Not terribly different from like 2006. Between a couple news aggregators I've been using for almost 2 decades, and "Mastodon," I have pretty much the internet experience I want. Could it be improved? Sure. But it could be much, much worse
@notroot heck yeah, I have stuff that's out there but I don't use 🤣 (like LinkedIn, "business" Facebook) and sigh I'm on Insta and reddit still, Insta is just toys and games (I'm on Android too, the Firefox YouTube ad blocking is great - just disabled the dumb app - and I use sideloaded APK for Insta called Instander. Kills ads too). My feeds are all super curated.
Obviously finished with Twitter, as any self respecting person should be.
I did start up a pixelfed with Pxlmo- I hear that you can import ALL your Insta stuff there. Probably my future. I want to give Meta NOTHING. And kbin/Lemmy - working on that too. I currently follow only 8 reddit subs, all cartoons/games, one is one I made for Eek the Cat 🤣 but yeah. Loving that old internet feel!
Now, to switch from Gmail to something. Proton? Maybe. Getting there. UnGoogling from an Android is tough (right) but I don't like Apple stuff.
@jake4480 Oh you disabled YT on Android? That doesn't break anything? GREAT!!!
(Pause whilst this is accomplished... DONESKI)
And yah I agree with everything else you said... I never had Twitter (I'm just too verbose) and I got kicked off Reddit for laughing at Ted Cruz when he got beaned by a pop can. A lot of the internet complaints about the internet are self-inflicted. There's always the choice NOT to drink in the Nazi bar......
@notroot 🤣 dude that is SO true. FUCK the Nazi bar. I hate all of it. I'm fairly verbose too. Was on Twitter since 2010, just for fun, highly curated - I guess I DID even make other Twitter accounts for projects, after realizing maybe not everyone wanted to hear me prattle on about cartoons constantly. Which I kinda do about music here! 🤣😂🤣
@jake4480 I looked at TikTok for about 5 seconds before I knew it wasn’t for me. I'm very much old man yells at cloud. My social media involvement used to be reddit but I've been using it less and Masto more. I'll be honest at first I couldn't figure out how to get a feed I wanted, but I've since been able to dial it in to basically just baseball and metal (the things I enjoy) and I'm happy with that. If I wanna see what's going on in the rest of the world I can view the federated feed.
@rtw exactly. Here, there is a CHOICE. They don't start you on a For You feed that's a bunch of stuff you don't always know or follow, thinking I will like it.. I don't always WANT to be recommended stuff. I like to choose. I don't think algorithms know best for me. I'm highly curated here too. It's awesome. I try not to be old man yells at cloud but sometimes I am. 🤣
@SJeffries it's horrible. I mean, I set it once a while back. Haven't changed TVs or anything. I hate it. Will probably try it again. But will it just revert back again? Probably. And then I will have wasted even more time. Ah, technology. 🤣
@jake4480 it’s made even worse by the fact that clips tend to have excerpts from songs that start somewhere in the middle of the song. I can’t stand it.
Also, do people mute their phone to check tik tok in public, or do they always wear headphones?
@spinning_bird yes! And the weird, awful voice effects they have on there- most times, my phone's on mute. But the app isn't always. Yeah, it's loud as hell when you open it. And sure, you can scroll it on mute but right when you open it, or in public, yeah. But then some of the regular non screaming videos require sound for context, etc. It's a mess. 🤣
@jake4480 My kids watch some game streamers (Rainbow Six Siege, Fortnite, etc) and some are really screamers. I just can't stand it. Thank god for Bluetooth headphones...
@jake4480 I can't stand Tiktok's always on audio. A volume switch would do wonders.
But! I have some serious concerns about misinformation there. I just recently started spending time there. Nothing is fact-checked and someone speaking loudly and confidently about wrong or incorrect shit can (and does) go viral, confirming the biases of millions of viewers. It's the worst of Youtube on meth.
@DanielTuttle AGH that always on volume thing. My phone is on silent but you open the app and it screams. It's all on purpose though right - a lot of the app is just a big dark pattern. Starting on the For You page instead of my own feed, no way to change that. HATE that. And damn, you're right about the misinformation. That's why, even on here, I like to be careful when boosting things with information that looks like it might be an opinion, or dubious... And it can even be tough to tell! I mean, we've ALL been fooled by something in the computer age, right? The amount of viral stuff with wrong information- and now we have AI writing books incorrectly about what fungi are okay to eat- shit be gettin weird out here
@DanielTuttle for real. And it's like they're adding it to more and more things. Do most people really WANT this or is it just an excuse for more rampant data collection? Both?
@jake4480 My wife is a tiktok person too, and I'm not being critical. But, for me, it's like the worst parody of channel flipping from a dystopian movie.
Click WE ARE RENOVATING THIS H
Click canned laugh track
Click Ba doo dee doo deedoo dee doo dee doo dee doo deedoo dee doo doo doooooo
Click canned laugh track
Click HEY BITCHES IT'S TI
Click WE DISCOVERED A SECRET CHAMBER IN OUR VICTO
Click
@crawford oh wow. You NAILED IT. That's what bugs me about it. Dystopian TV, coming straight to your eyes via pocket computer! My wife has a lot of craft, makeup, animals, Taylor, it's a mix. Usually mostly nice. But then the other stuff starts seeping in - nasty political takes, etc.. The fame-seekers. Gross. And it's all hyped and pushed by society. And yeah surfing it, even slightly turned up volume, it sounds exactly like this hell you typed 😬
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