Seperis

Logically, I want to say no, not really, but I also would have thought the blackout and ongoing protests wouldn’t really affect Reddit and they’d ignore it. Reddit itself, however, seems incredibly determined to pursue a course of action which requires performing This Does Not Affect Us At All as dramatically and publicly as possible given the slightest opportunity whether anyone cares or not. This doesn’t even include the admins playing subreddit roulette that encompasses actively rebelling subs, subs deep in malicious compliance, and subs that have no idea wtf is going on they just want to talk about their weird NSFW fetish in peace.

So no, I don’t think so, but I’m beginning to wonder if Reddit thinks there is and what they’re seeing on their side that I’m not.

The only reason I have social media accounts under my wallet name is to avoid anyone wondering why I’m not on social media (also: grandparents). Everyone IRL who I care enough about to actually explain know I login once a year in a separate browser (under incognito) and check every privacy setting from my checklist and update if it’s important (like job change). LinkedIn I check regularly, but that’s because a.) I only connect with people from work and a lot of them do think it’s important to have strong networks (and they could be right, no idea) and b.) LinkedIn has an education section that my job really likes because it has free classes and when I get bored at work, I can do a quick class in something (nothing they actually want us to do; I have to work in the nightmare that is Agile, do not make me take yet another class about the benefits of this software development hellscape, thanks).

Honestly, I try to give the impression I’m not into social media IRL; there are like, three people in my daily life who are allowed into my online life and one because we more or less both got the internet at the same time and started a mailing list together. Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of nice people IRL, but not the type I want to introduce to the friends I made online.

I started vaping seven years ago as a way to quit smoking; I smoked my last cigarette literally outside the vape store before walking in and asking what to I buy to pull this off as nothing worked. The transition was seamless; not only did I never even crave a cigarette again, I very quickly learned to loathe the smell of cigarettes once my full range of smell came back. There’s not even a temptation to start up again.

It also helps that I choose vapes that smell amazing.

I am still vaping, yes, but I’m stepping down my nicotine pretty much every two years. I started at 24 and am now at 15 (I was stuck at 18 for a while). Those transitions I can definitely feel, but I can start with adjusting my mod’s wattage, air flow, use different coils for a bit, and ease into it so once I step down, there’s no chance I step back up, and then reward myself sometimes with a new fancy mod with a touchscreen with more leds or a cooler tank or something. All that and I am spending an order of magnitude less than I ever did on cigarettes and I have the math to prove it.

It’s certainly not ideal and yeah, it’s slow and basically only progressively reducing harm, but it’s a process that for me is guaranteed to work with no backtracking and progress is assured.

Sweet Roko’s Basilisk, so I wasn’t missing some mysterious reddit setting where I ‘new’ was translated as ‘wtf’ and ‘crap’?

It’s a whole new world.