So I bit the bullet and became, by my account, roughly the 17 millionth human to open an account on Bluesky during yet another bout of insomnia where literally dozens of folks I follow were bragging on other social media platforms we share about the soul-cleansing experience they experienced doing so.
At least that’s the number that ZD NET’s Lance Whitney shared with his readers yesterday morning, along with his primer to the platform:
More people have been flocking to Bluesky lately, with many likely joining as an alternative to Elon Musk’s X. One week after the US presidential election, Bluesky snagged more than 1 million new members, a company spokesperson told The New York Times on Tuesday.
The user count keeps growing. According to the newest stats, it has shot up to more than 16.7 million since Tuesday, up from 9 million in early September and 12 million around mid-October. You can even watch the numbers climb in real time.
The ASSOCIATED PRESS expounded a bit on its own earlier this morning:
Disgruntled X users are again flocking to Bluesky, a newer social media platform that grew out of the former Twitter before billionaire Elon Musk took it over in 2022. While it remains small compared to established online spaces such as X, it has emerged as an alternative for those looking for a different mood, lighter and friendlier and less influenced by Musk.
Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles Musk’s X, with a “discover” feed and a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.
The logo is eerily reminiscent of the old bluebird which Twitter made iconic, and still somehow remains intact on plenty of pages where the opportunity to share content is offered, including the one that you’re reading right now. I guess my webmaster somehow didn’t get the message?
I’d offer you a link to my handle, which is the same as that of my Instagram account and which apparently has been all set up and approved on my phone. Yet when I sat down to begin this musing on my laptop this morning and tried to log in to Bluesky to provide that seamless connection, I kept getting error messages on that handle already being taken by someone else–which I did not get on my phone. Maybe someone out there can help me troubleshoot; my webmaster has far more important things to attend to today, such as an out-of-state backgammon tournament.
When Musk began to dismantle the staff and firewalls of the site as he got more involved, like so many others who at that time were up in arms I opened an account on Threads, a site I post this musing and those from our sister site, Double Overtime, every single day. I can count on one hand the number of actual interactions and acknowledgements I’ve gotten from Threads since that account was opened.
Which is about the same number I get from X, which I also still post to despite its supposed toxicity. I may not be smart enough to figure out how to navigate Bluesky, but I am aware enough to realize bots when they interact with me. The overwhelming majority of those who follow me on X are clearly bots–either that, or there’s apparently several sets of attractive Asian female nonuplets who all somehow fell in lust with me simultaneously.
And as for the ones that are clearly human, I’ve honestly never gotten any trolling from anyone political on either side of the spectrum, which given the content I regularly post one would naturally think some algorithm of Elon’s would have picked up on. What I do get are the “COVIDIsNotOver” crowd who wail and advocate for permanent masking for the entire world, defiantly covering virtually their entire face in their profile pictures and who will literally post multiple times a minute to defend their abject paranoia to anyone who might be engageable. Sometimes, if I’m in a feisty mood, I will merely ask them “Where’s the objective third party study that conclusively shows that even an N-95 respirator makes a statistically significant difference in transmission?” I’ve yet to get the same answer more than once, and those I’ve received that I’ve parsed all seem to have methodological flaws. Sometimes, in exasperation the more impassioned defenders will type in all caps “TRUST THE SCIENCE!!”.
Yep, I bet that plays real well with Elon and his new cabinet-mate in waiting who is hinting he’s gonna use that platform as his megaphone–assuming, of course, they’re somehow both confirmed for those roles.
And yet–they’re still there. Because apparently like moi they seem to at least have a curiosity for what the other side is saying, and have enough emotional self-control to ignore or put into context the validity and sanity behind it.
As for Bluesky, well, three posts in I got a few graphics from one apparently very active user addressing their desire to soon see the obituary of the person that a majority of America just voted for. Not that I was one of them, but please tell me how that is any less incideniary than anything comparing his former opponent to a prostitute?
And then, as I opened the browser yet again in futility, I was hit with this:
To be fair, there’s also a lot of real nice pictures of pets and libraries, along with a whole lot of “Thank God this exists!” celebratories. Funny, but those from accounts I recognized the handles of also happened to be showing up on my Facebook, Instagram and Threads feeds as well.
Which may be why the ASSOCIATED PRESS’ writeup included this nugget:
Bluesky, though, has bigger ambitions than to supplant X. Beyond the platform itself, it is building a technical foundation — what it calls “a protocol for public conversation” — that could make social networks work across different platforms — also known as interoperability — like email, blogs or phone numbers.
Currently, you can’t cross between social platforms to leave a comment on someone’s account. Twitter users must stay on Twitter and TikTok users must stay on TikTok if they want to interact with accounts on those services. Big Tech companies have largely built moats around their online properties, which helps serve their advertising-focused business models.
Bluesky is trying to reimagine all of this and working toward interoperability.
In which case, aside from the personal satisfaction one may get from supporting something other than something owned by someone they believe is a racist, misogynistic conspiracy theorist, what actual aggregative benefit is Bluesky providing?
Please know absolutely no one involved in X gives a rat’s ass if you’re there or not. And does anyone truly think there’s a materialeconomic difference even 17 million of us can make on a site that even in failure, per Backlinko.com, has more than 500 million MAUs and 200 million DAUs? (You can Google those acronyms if you have to, which means you might now have been paying close attention to previous musings. I suspect Google is a safe haven site.)
Threads, in my experience, is the safest haven of all, and has the infrastructure of Facebook to support it independently. Dorsey may have his own personal motivation to succeed, but it sure looks like he’s got his work cut out for him. Especially given the climate and reality of what the current majority of America is believing.
And I, for one, would rather know a bit more about what and why they think that way than simply bury myself in an echo chamber of frustration and close-mindedness. Blue-pilling is no healthier than red-pilling.
I get that there’s a desire to bring back the Bluebird of happiness to social media. But it shouldn’t have to be in the form of an ostrich.
See you on Threads, I suppose.
Until next time…