I'm locked out of twitter. I'm trying to fix it now. I was planning to leave more social media. I may have screwed up posting a heavy conspiracy website using a negative symbol, the conspiracy website was AGAINST what that symbol represents, and I am against it too, but I may have gotten kicked out for good anyway. It was dumb. I didn't agree with everything from that website anyway, but it seemed to show some truth about how both main parties are "owned".
I was stressed out about dying in WWIII, and should have been more mindful about what I was posting. Maybe too many posts about Palantir, Thiel, and being very anti-Iran war like the above, got me kicked off too. They want to sell MAGA on war and the left isn't fighting it either with the No Kings ignoring our impending nuclear demise. More on that later. Shadow-banning could have been already happening on my account.
I wrote twitter/X and told them it is only fair to know what I got kicked out for and was willing to take down the offending posts, but they claimed I lost access to my account when I never lost the password. When I got banned for being against the Covid vaccine, they at least told me what I was being banned for. My future social credit score is going to be really bad.
Most of the internet is very owned and controlled, and sometimes I wonder if the dead internet theory is true. I think most people online are astrobots, turfs and fake accounts. This is definitely true of Reddit and Twitter/X. There was a lot of time, I felt like I was writing to created personalities.
Twitter/X gets complicated. Conspiracy websites use all sorts of symbols for exposure so maybe I am wrong about why I got kicked out. X does lean very right wing and pro-Maga there though there's some people like me who hate both main parties and have some of the same viewpoints. It's sad that the left became so in love with censorship during Covid, that us independents, were more on 'right wing' leaning websites, because the leftist websites just banned any questioning outright.
There's a lot of outraged MAGA people, who are not happy over Iran/Israel matters but there's also a lot trying to sell war. I don't want to go to Bluesky, they will censor me within the first day for not being politically correct. I have an account on Gab, but it was way too MAGA, no independents or people rejecting both parties so I barely posted there. Gttr.com I had an account too but again, MAGA to the max, and nothing alternative was posted there.
Musk does own the place obviously. I considered leaving before so maybe getting kicked off won't be a bad thing but would like access to my account to get some media, and old links and posts. I did get a second account by accident, and may post a little on there, and talk to friends if they can find it. Hopefully I can get the original account back. You know it's sad, there seems to be so few independent websites and message boards now and everything has been monopolized to an extent.
I was going to lower my internet involvement, I left reddit months ago, except for reading on purpose. I plan to lower other social media. Being deaf, most of my conversations with friends, both in the flesh people and online friends, is online. That makes things complicated as I don't want to lose those connections. I plan to still blog here. Since I am in bed so much, I am online too much. I do a lot of art and watch movies too, but the internet can wrap itself around you. It became more of the "real world" to me. That worries me. Just leaving my apartment seems to cost money so I am kind of devoid of a real life lately outside of seeing my few regional friends and a few art ventures like an abstract art scholarship class and going to the Senior Center art co-ops. My lack of money to "do things" in the real world has made life too internet dependent. Even medical stuff often has to be done online and with email correspondence.
I was having this conversation with husband yesterday, that our life is far too much on screens, and that we need to change this because it is not healthy. We are losing connection to the real world. Covid really got that ball rolling, my life never recovered. I talk about leaving here all the time. It's like being stuck in a glue trap. You are scared of choosing WORSE but dream of a place where you can afford to live, to wake up happy and not scared with people around who still talk to each other. Remember that small town I used to go escape to when I could for my art club? There are some things here I like and places I'm used to and there's resources I fear losing here, but this isolated of a life, in the long term worries me. A lot of places in America are messed up. I looked at one town, their water is contaminated with lead, one place the power goes out all the time, and is becoming druggie central. No place is perfect of course.
Where can we go where we can be people too and belong and have community? I have told my husband we need to go where other poor people are, where we "fit in". and around others like us, but he sees this as some sort of defeat and maybe fears a rerun of the hell we faced in Chicago. I would pick more rural climes but there's always the medical needs problem. I explored this issue enough before like in my article about housing. He told me the other day, "I don't want to end up living in some dump!" We almost ended up here this long just based on our apartment which we like. I told him, well there was good stuff with the arts here. Some of my decisions would have been different. It's hard. The subsidized housing has not worked out. We are still on the list but other programs besides HUD which we don't qualify for are far more complicated. Even that place raised the market rent by 200 dollars in one fell swoop.
I want to live not worried about bills even if it means extreme austerity. I want to feel "safe" and just want peace. No one is thinking about how the internet is chipping away at community and how it has changed things. Focusing on screens is chipping away at all the communities. People forget the day to day interactions that maintained community and place. If one lives in the internet matrix, the real world slips away. What is it going to do to our towns? I picture those memes that show some guy hooked into a VR set living in a dump. Virtual reality has replaced reality. I am guilty. How do I fix this?
Maybe that day is already here, as our towns and communities are crumbling and everyone is hooked into the matrix.
I have analyzed myself, why am I online so much? Seeking attention and validation I didn't get from the family? Maybe that ties into my own internet addiction. The internet can be enticing, in giving you the illusion of having a voice. Maybe personal blogs are the only place that is happening anymore as news is controlled and websites like X, Bluesky and Facebook are so curated. I lost a lot of real world people from moves and who are deceased so maybe this sadness tied in. There was no family ever to talk to. Even when I was around, they cared more about the virtual world--mostly via TV and entertainment and materialism. My invisibility was intense. I read these books written by monks, where they talked about humility and they lived opposite lives of "wanting to be seen". Some of those spiritual things were interesting to ponder.
I may have issues that got me hooked onto the internet. I plan to continue this blog, but there's times where I felt like the fivehundredpoundpeep "avatar" identity superseded or "conflicted" with my real identity. This is hard to explain, but I told my husband one day, "fivehundredpoundpeep" became like a new personality, The real Peep is far more quiet and introverted maybe even boring compared to fivehundredpoundpeep, the internet persona. The spiky haired woman with her big boxing gloves appears as more meek in the real world. Some people probably would be surprised by what they get. I am far less verbally astute in real life, text is far easier. I appear "slow" because of the deafness, and autism. There's this one woman who befriended the "real me" on social media. She told me she was impressed with my intellect, and wanted to get to know me. Sadly while I was more connected to my real social media name, my real persona [I was open and told her I was autistic] in this case seemed to disappoint her in some way. The friendship did not work out, she is the friend who unfriended me over politics.
In real life, I lived on the edge a little bit, worried people would find out my hidden "fivehundredpoundpeep" identity and get pissed off at my controversial viewpoints, I don't express in real life. I think I got tired, the climate is so extreme now, that I ran into someone I knew who is very liberal, when I went to a community sale. He asked me if I am still an antivaxxer, I said "Yes, and I am glad I made those decisions for myself..." He was in shock when I told him, "I never got Covid". I had the disturbing thought later, he no longer saw me as a person, only a label, I was put in a box with the lid firmly shut never to get out. I didn't announce those views to the majority either. I however emailed this particular person about my worries. How much is the internet or the matrix so to speak, narrowing perceptions of other people. Am I just the "crazy antivaxxer" to this guy now? It made me wonder. I was disturbed he supported all this stuff but figured he has an identity well beyond those decisions. Maybe I see the world differently, I'm not sure.
Remember I don't even tell real world people, I am a hardcore conspiracy theorist, that explores really strange stuff about the nature of our world, from prison planet theories to wanting to order an Ethiopian bible because it contains books that got taken out of regular Bibles. Some friends do find out my conspiracy interests but this is something I only tell the "inner circle". There's only so much 'weirdness" I can show and I show it more openly in my fivehundredpoundpeep persona. Remember us autistics have to "cloak" and appear normal to others, so that adds a layer to this.
I wonder if anyone has ever written on this difference between online personalities or real life personalities. I don't make money off this blog, but it's like I formed a "brand" of myself and had to mold it, if this makes sense. I wonder if it has affected my personality in weird ways. Are people merely labels now? It's ignored the complexity of people and has dialed everyone down to where they fit in the hierarchy instead of being their own individuals.
One thing worrying me about the internet taking over the world is the real world seems so impersonal now. I had this PA/doctor for 6 years or so, I make an appointment and am sent someone else. No one tells me. No one says goodbye. I thought she liked me, I liked her, she helped keep me alive. Why wasn't I worthy of even being told? What can I say? I did tell the office manager, "Someone should have told me.". Outside of my friends, people don't seem to talk much. Everywhere I go is so quiet beyond my own deafness. The technocratic world is not a very friendly one. No one talks to you. There is an invisibility in it.
The internet is not the same as having a real life with people you can share real conversations with. Some of us do make real friends online, so that happens and is a positive, but socializing online though you meet some real friends, is not the same as community in real life. Most of my contact with my REAL world friends is online, so how is that affecting people? I see some friends once a month or so, but talk more on the internet. I have wondered sometimes what would the online friends who I never met in person think of me in real life? Maybe you have too. Maybe I ruined my life being online so much but where was there to be? Most poor people lose the internet, he works on it, it's getting expensive. 140 dollars a month seems excessive. The days it cost 50 dollars a month weren't that long ago.
The smart phones did change conversations. I went to groups where people spent more time on their phone than talking to anyone. Why are you here if the phone is the center of your attention but then I'm not much better having to read everyone says. What do they post? Most don't seem to throw themselves into the internet foray like I did but just scroll over and over for dopamine hits. I worry because I'm hooked to my phone to talk to anyone, so can't put it away, it is always there. I need the transcribing function. The screen worlds are determining our reality.
The screen worlds allow a "little" controlled dissent, but there's a reason they can openly deny what is really happening to people like I wrote in the gaslighted about the economy article. Most are establishment centers, this is what you are "supposed to think". People aren't looking around at their in- person environment, to judge and determine reality, getting it from online! That's why people can be openly lied too with the truth staring them in the face, because the screen is more believed than reality.
I got the feeling on X, I was talking to a brick wall at times. People posting hoping there's an audience somewhere. There's somewhat of one on here, I hope. Why can't we talk anymore in the real world. I did make it personal policy to avoid religion, politics and finances, except with the closest of friends. The feelings of repression are immense. Those topics were ignored before in polite company but something changed where one little slip up or mild statement could get someone really mad at you. It's scary to me, I have no other poor people IRL to talk about how rough things are? How did that happen? Maybe everyone hides it from each other but I know in more working class communities more honesty was allowed, there wasn't so much saving of face. Politics just messes up relationships unless it's a close enough friendship to survive disagreement or one is like-minded. They got everyone at each other's throats. I miss calm collected settings, getting lots of nostalgic memories. Why is everything so isolated and shut down?
Once I burst out crying to husband, remember when people could talk to each other in our old town? What am I even doing here? One way power can centralize, is they cut off the connection and social interaction between individuals, that's definitely has happened in America. Everything seems so depressing here. Is it me? I'm not sure. I miss energy, spark, disagreements even when you know a relationship would survive it. Is that strange to think. It's like we are all supposed to be labels, members of a club others all define, but there's very little in the real world. Even the stores are boring now, carrying less and less products. Only life you can have the one you can afford. If they do social credit nonsense to us once they got the Palantir network going, expect people to get even more quiet and disconnected. Computers aren't very warm things, all the new things they build seem to be boxy and with no flair, utilitarian to the max. Some of us may not ditch the internet, we need it for some things and still want to blog, but we need to go get more of the real world back.
