I have a love/hate relationship with Micro.blog.
I fell in love with the place when I first joined. I saw it as a Twitter alternative, not fully understanding that it is largely a blog platform attached to a social media community.
It remains my go-to blogging place, even though the effort to change its visual theme takes a degree in coding that I just don’t have the time or patience for. Otherwise, it’s such a simple and straightforward platform for blogging. I love it for that, and I will recommend it to anyone who is looking for a place to blog.
As for the community part? I liked it at first, but the aspects that annoyed me began to pile up: the lack of diversity and women, the Apple fanboy discussions that broke out too often, the smug I-quit-all-corporate-media-and-you’re-an-idiot-if-you-don’t-too thing.
What finally drove me away for the most part was a post I wrote about my sense that I am probably on the autism spectrum. It brought out a few reactions to the effect of, “Why is being autistic so trendy?” and “I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to be autistic” and “My son is autistic, and it’s absolutely a terrible thing to want to be.”
(Never mind that I didn’t say I wanted to be autistic. I just said that the more I learn about autism by virtue of having a daughter on the spectrum, the more I realized that many of the traits I’ve had since childhood were considered indicators of this neurotype, and it seemed to explain a lot about my life.)
So, basically, a sense of unkindness (with a vague whiff of mansplaining) was a last straw for me in the M.b community, just like it seems to be for most people who leave a given social platform. I’ve kept my posts off the community timeline for the most part since then but have continued to blog through Micro.blog.
I still believe in Micro.blog as an indie web platform, and I don’t see myself leaving it anytime soon. But I’ve found the kind of community I had hoped for there at a Meta platform, of all places.
Threads is strangely comfortable for me, and I hope Meta doesn’t ruin it with invasive ads (though I expect it eventually will). Until Threads gets fully commercialized, I’ll be there for my social media peeps. And I’ll still be at M.b for all my blogging needs.