unspeakablehorror | Social Media Spaces and Socializing (Reply)

While I definitely think people's experiences on social media can make a huge difference depending on what platform they're on, and no they're not all the same actually, I also think that there's no real way to escape bad social media experiences because sometimes socializing is just painful. Sometimes that's not anyone's fault and it's just conflicting needs. And sometimes it *is* someone's fault. And sometimes no matter what the social conventions or rules or laws are, they will do whatever they can to try to get around those. Sometimes it's an artifact of the way social media is different from face-to-face interactions--a persistent record of things you've expressed, many times outside of the context they belong in. Sometimes it's just a matter of all the usual difficulties that come with socializing.

It's just a fraught area of human experience regardless of if the people involved are 'good at it' or not, or well-intentioned or not. So I think there isn't really a such thing as a space with no dysfunction in it, a space with no unpleasantness, a space of complete safety. Because wherever there is a group of people, there is dysfunction and unpleasantness, and danger. It's simply that wherever there's a group of people, there's also the possibility of opportunities for healing, and kindness, and protection. I think this kind of duality is just inherent to socializing, it's simply that certain dynamics may be encouraged or suppressed in certain environments.

And I think the environment matters immensely, but it also matters what the people involved bring to the space.