It turns out that things change, and not always for the better

I received an email from Flickr this morning notifying me that someone had favourites one of my images. It was a photo of an adult member of my family, but I was still a bit shocked.

Which is weird, because had that happened 10, 15, or 20 years ago I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. It's been quite a while since I marked all of the photos of my kids as private on Flickr, but I spent time this morning ensuring that photos including other family members are now private.

My wife always thought it was a bit weird to share photos of what you were doing with strangers, but I was very much taken up with the whole Web 2.0 zeitgeist between about 2016 and 2020. I probably overshared quite a bit. But then not everyone was online, and the tools had not become enshittified.

I've avoided saying that previous times were "better" or "worse" than now, because I'm a middle-aged white guy and no-one really wants to hear how things have become worse according to me.

But they have, haven't they? I think we can agree that the social media landscape is more like a hellscape. I only really find I can be myself when I'm not using social platforms as much.

And that's not just to do with the algorithms, either - although they don't help. I was listening to Harry Enfield on Adam Buxton's podcast and he was making a very obvious point that nevertheless bears repeating: if you say "Harry Enfield is an idiot" on social media and get 50 likes or whatever you are very much more likely to say similar things again.

At its most extreme is audience capture where people literally become the puppets of their followers. But we all do it to an extent, don't we? There's things I say in Mastodon that I wouldn't say on LinkedIn, and vice-versa. Some of that is healthy (we are complex, multi-faceted creatures) but it can also be a bit performative.