Potato - potatoe, tomato - tomatoe.

You see 196 as

queer and especially trans friendly

I see it as a garden of shitposting delights.

I would like to know more.

I rather like the shitpost bombardment. It's the type of thing that creates a party vibe, and it could attract more than a few eyeballs to peek and linger. As the content can be somewhat dry in a community that's just starting out, this helps to normalize the place, make it more familiar to visiting eyes.

This current shitposting challenge sure as hell beats a barrage of anti-reddit, anti-musk, anti-zuckerberg posts, as well as "how does this [Fediverse/instances/posting/etc] work?" dominating the All page.

"Live on, survive, for the Earth gives forth wonders. It may swallow your heart, but the wonders keep on coming. You stand before them bareheaded, shriven. What is expected of you is attention."

Salman Rushdie, from The Ground Beneath Her Feet.

A more recent one, meditation-related, short and simple and I have no idea who said it, I just happened to catch it a couple of years ago on a website-that-shall-not-be-named:

"I am not my thoughts."

I have never, ever posted a picture of my kids online. I've sent a handful to family and friends via messaging apps, but only ones that are naturally flattering, and that is as far as it goes.

As it turns out, my overwhelming hunch that this is the only decent, respectful course of action in the mindless social media age, seems to be correct.
I love my kids, and I respect them as people, as individuals with a right to privacy at any age.

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

Even if you don't mind the insidious invasions of privacy that these companies have undertaken with relentless determination:

Because everything these companies touch, they sooner or later enshittify.
Because the past decade has shown that Facebook's intentions cannot be trusted.

they will at first lure you in with cooking, travel, and credit card tips

Holy crap. I had no idea. We've heard of a slippery slope, but this is a slippery sheer vertical cliff.
Like that toxic meathead rogan luring the curious in with DMT stories and the like, and this sounds like that particular spore has burst and spread.

You watch this one thing out of curiosity, morbid curiosity, or by accident, and at the slightest poke the goddamned mindless algorithm starts throwing this shit at you.

The algorithm is "weaponized" for who screams the loudest, and I truly believe it started due to myopic incompetence/greed, not political malice. Which doesn't make it any better, as people don't know how to take care of themselves from this bombardment, but the corporations like to pretend that ~~they~~ people can, so they wash their hands for as long as they are able.

Then on top of this, the algorithm has been further weaponized by even more malicious actors who have figured out how to game the system.
That's how toxic meatheads like infowars and joe rogan get a huge bullhorn that reaches millions. "Huh... DMT experiences... sounds interesting", the format is entertaining... and before you know it, you are listening to anti-vax and qanon excrement, your mind starts to normalize the most outlandish things.

EDIT: a word, for clarity

I love reading and writing, replying and interacting. The quality of discourse around here has been excellent so far, the right kind of people have migrated here.
Fully granted that there are many topics in which I'd love to see more activity, but the space is young. Neither Rome nor Reddit were built in a day.

Also, a way to keep track of conversations, an unobtrusive notification and a direct link to the spot in any given thread.

I’m not going to set a precedent of confirming with The Verge every action we do or don’t take

If you feel compelled to regard everybody as either your unpaid servant or as a hostile entity - except for taking deliberate time to pointedly kiss the Twitter imbecile's ass - maybe, just maybe it's you yourself, with a profound lack of self-awareness, that might be the very root of the problem you're flailing to deal with.

Ok, I just gotta say that watching this type of talk here, puts my mind at rest that the Fediverse is going to be alright. That we are in the right place.