cobysev

I’ve spent nearly 2 decades connecting with friends, family, coworkers, and associates through Facebook. I hate Facebook, and actually use F.B. Purity to remove 90% of the content, ads, promotional junk, games, marketplace, etc. from it. But as the main way I’ve stayed in touch with people I’ve known over the course of my life, I just can’t dump it.

Besides that, I have Lemmy (of course); LinkedIn, which I’m not really using anymore since I retired young; Imgur, which I mostly just use for browsing memes; and Discord, which I only use to communicate with a few close friends whom I game with weekly.

I created accounts for Instagram and Whatsapp, but I’ve never used them. They were too self-promoting for my taste. When they first became a thing, they were all about taking selfies and sharing your face with your friends. I wanted discussion and interesting content, not to see selfies. They created the generation of “social media influencers” who think they’re entitled to things in life because X number of people follow them on social media.

I also avoid TikTok like the plague. I was in the US military (working as an IT guy) when TikTok became popular, and we discovered it embedded itself in your phone so deeply, you couldn’t fully remove it even when uninstalling. Plus, it gave itself full admin rights to your phone, then started trickling your data to Chinese servers. Which is why the president made such a big deal about TikTok being a national security threat. It’s not because we didn’t get along with a Chinese company; it’s because a foreign government was collecting personal data and building profiles on American citizens. I will never touch that program as long as I live.

I’m 40 years old, by the way. A lot of people say Facebook is only used by old people, and yes, I just turned 40 and am finally becoming an “old person.” But I’m still relatively young compared to people’s expectations of Facebook users. And I have a lot of Facebook friends who are much younger than I am.

Personally. I don’t consider it a vacation until I’m cut off from everyone and everything. Let me relax in peace for a while, without distractions.

Oh damn, I’m starting on the Boomer habit of complaining about Zoomer culture when it’s actually Alpha culture.

It feels like yesterday, Boomers were complaining about how annoying millennial kids were, when we were actually adults in our 20s/30s at the time. I’m just realizing that was over a decade ago, and now I’m doing the same thing to Zoomers. Someone please stop time before I get any older; I want to get off.

Had to guess on the boomerang. I’ve seen boomerangs but didn’t know that’s what they’re called nor have I ever posted one.

I’ve never heard of a “boomerang” that wasn’t referring to the Australian tool/toy. I totally guessed on that one too. I don’t post videos to any social media platform, so I was totally out of the loop on that one.

Skibidi toilet? As a 39-yr old millennial, I’m aware that was a thing like a year ago, but I assumed it was a Zoomer meme or something. I can’t get past that captcha.

EDIT: Upon looking at it again, I see it just wants me to type in “what is skibidi toilet” into Google, not answer what it is. Ugh, I’m turning into my Silent Generation/Boomer parents.

Truth. I just retired from the US Air Force 2 years ago. Spent 20 years as an IT technician. Most of the time, I just worked in a safe, secluded server room. Even while deployed to Iraq, I pretty much worked and lived in bunkers. Wasn’t even allowed to leave the base. My job was pretty safe.

I deployed to a Marine camp once in 2005. My Marine boss said she hoped to god she never saw an Air Force person with a gun in their hands. She said that would mean the planes are down, the base is overrun, and the Marines are dead. She said we were literally the last line of defense. So if we were ever attacked, she told me to just hand my weapon and ammunition to the nearest Marine and go take cover until it’s all over.