I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t.
The problem I’m having is that I don’t exist online when people try to look me up. When someone tries to check me out, there’s nothing there and apparently that’s considered abnormal these days. I think it’s starting to affect my life negatively for various reasons I’d rather not get into.
I’d just like some advice about where to start if you wanted to dip your toes in and check it out. LinkedIn, maybe?
Don´t, it´s fucking horrible. Yes, this also includes a major part of lemmy. If you really wan´t to, I would advise to only focus on nice little communities that are specialized in one of your personal interests. Generally, the larger a community becomes, the more toxic and stupid it gets in my experience.
Ignorance is bliss.
I’d say if you aren’t on them and don’t need them, there’s no reason to dip your toe in.
It’s okay to be a little weird and save tons of time and not have to read worthless comments.
I was part of the main ones, but got rid of everything, LinkedIn Facebook, all of it. They are useless or detrimental personally, and I don’t need them for my job.
This is the extent of my social media now.
Linkedin is the only social media I would reccomend to put yourself out (as in, put your successful projects in) as it’s used more as a networking tool to land yourself in better jobs.
Fuck other social media. Anonymity is best.
If you do create a social media profile, just remember two things: you control what you share, and anything you share is out there forever.
If I don’t have anything nice to say I don’t say anything at all.
As a woman who was single and dating, saying you don’t have a social media is a red flag. Best case scenario, you truly don’t and it’s probably from having some sort of arrogant judgement value about people who do, worst case, you have a spouce you are hiding from me.
Either way, not worth the risk. Like all the women I know feel the same. Sure it’s a historically newer redflag that didn’t exist 10-50 years ago, but neither was worrying about crypto gambling and myagoo manospehre BS. Modern problems require modern precautions.
I love that your post gave a probabilistic binning of someone who doesn’t have a traditional social media account, which was unironically confirmed by people replying with rustled jimmies.
Come on folks, it should be clear from context that she is saying that a single woman setting up dates is going to use what limited info they have to avoid stalkers, cheaters, red pillers, and anti social people. That this might filter out perfectly normal people along with the creeps is the cost of maintaining safety and not wasting time, which is pretty much par for the course in dating. There’s also a difference between exchanging info after a brief meeting, and actually knowing a person for an extended time and then dating. I doubt OP is saying that someone they studied with for three semesters would be excluded for lack of social media, because they have real life context and don’t need the proxy filters.
Also, getting real close in these replies to “but I’m a nice guy” and “I’m not like other girls.”
I just think it’s quite funny that in their justification, they project their own arrogant judgemental attitude towards those they justify their own behavior against.
[it’s justified because] best case scenario, [the reason why] you don’t [have social media] is probably from having some sort of arrogant judgement value about people who do
seriously? I think that’s where people disagree.
it’d be different if they said:
a single woman setting up dates is going to use what limited info they have to avoid stalkers, cheaters, red pillers, and anti social people. That this might filter out perfectly normal people along with the creeps is the cost of maintaining safety and not wasting time, which is pretty much par for the course in dating
but that’s not what they said, and that’s not what people are responding to.
Imagine if some guy said:
“honestly, dating women who have social media is a red flag, at best they’re probably attention whores, but there’s also a good chance they’re a cheating slut.”
now imagine if someone responded to the “rustled jimmies” with
well, obviously they meant ((something else))
same thing, they should’ve said that then
I don’t disagree that comment OP could have phrased it better and come across as less judgey. And I think that of someone like you left a well worded reply to the effect that it would be very fair feedback.
At the same time I feel like some of the comments she has gotten are living down to the less generous version of her statements. If that makes sense. It also sort of feels like people wallpapering over the underlying reason that many women look for social media participation, which is as a way to vet for safety reasons.
But I agree, it’s not good to typecast and overgeneralize, and a better suggestion to the post OP might be that some women look for social media accounts for safety reasons, if that is part of your social issues mentioned.
But I digress. Have a great day!
Lol is this that Internet white knighting I hear about?
If you told me on a date that no social media is a red flag I would just interpret that the opposite way entirely.
I find social media addiction a full-on, hard-stop, red flag, deal-breaker.
Aye. My mother met dates through church and barn dances; friend of a friend vouching for a dude was enough. I am exposed to easily 50x the number of people that she was and at the same time “third places” are dwindling; mechanisms for social vetting have to evolve too.
If I can’t find any record of a person, I’m going to be really cautious about spending time IRL, same as not walking off alone with the stranger who crashed the dance who no one has ever seen before.
If people are dating through mutual contacts, sure, social media plays minimal part if any. Online dating? Hell no I’m not meeting a rando until I know they are a real person with base level social skills.
saying people who don‘t have social media are arrogant (or worse, suspicious) is the most red flag you can get. there was literally a greentext about this recently and I remember thinking there‘s no way someone could be that ignorant and yet here we are
I have never had a social media account under my real name, apart from Linkedin, which is just there to show me for possible employers.
When I google myself, I only get results about my address and my Linkedin profile, so I do atleast exist.
As for advice about joning something like Facebook…
- Stay away from politics.
- Don’t just “like” random stuff, be selective and only “like” stuff you really enjoy.
- Do not engage with dickheads, people will be mean to you, block them and move on, don’t engage, you can just leave.
- Stay away from politics.
- Never post photos of your kids/family without explicit, preferably written, consent.
- Be open to take down any photo of a person if said person asks you to.
- Stay away from politics.
- Avoid posting content about vacations before and during them, bruglers have been known to use that info to know when a house probably is empty.
- If you are a woman, please be extra careful posting images of your face online, people have and will continue to take faces of women in particular and photoshop them into porn, it is sad, but is a reality.
- Be mentally prepared for a lot of hate, whatever you post, you will sooner or later annoy someone online, or even just come to attention of certain people, and they will swnd you hate filled messges, block them and don’t engage.
- Stay away from politics.
Great advice, and thank you for answering the question :)
LinkedIn isn’t a terrible idea if you just want to come up in search results. It’s quite useful for a lot of different professions for networking. You’d likely just make a profile and never look at it again.
Facebook can be almost mandatory depending on where you live. I currently live in a city where Facebook is the only meaningful source of networking, local news and information on events online. It’s not uncommon for businesses, even quite larger ones, to have their only media presence online be a Facebook page. The city is also kind of infamously hard to break into socially so you want any advantage you can get.
I don’t currently have any social media but it’s become a hindrance and I might need to reactivate. I end up using social media by proxy through family and friends anyway.
I’ve been thinking about it as well, I think if I were to do it I’d probably post and immediately close the app, and disable notifications, to prevent addiction. Go for it, it might be fun who knows.
My guess is it’s because potential matches ask.
As a woman, I don’t find it weird, but I do find it unfortunate. It’s an easy, quick way to get a better understanding on if you’re who you say you are. Sure, it can be faked, but… that’s more rare, and mostly easily sussed out.
I like seeing Instagram personally. Not to follow, just as a good check. But if you don’t want insta, I’d suggest pixelfed. It’s not a part of meta and it functions as an instagram.
I keep my Linkedin updated, but Linkedin is BS. I hate it. Facebook I only keep for shitposting and because it’s the way my husband’s family keeps in touch (my husband deleted his FB years ago). Facebook is not great. Would not recommend. Honestly, most social media websites are shit and I could not recommend. Lemmy is kind of social media, and this is okay. I liked reddit too, back when I used it.
Ummm isn’t this a post on Lemmy? Aren’t you already using social media then?
You’re on social media right now. You know that, right?
You know what they mean. No need to be a smartass about it
If you really need to, I’d recommend social media within the Fediverse.
First, a Mastodon account with your real name, photo and a small bio. Post your thoughts or quotes or whatever; repost memes, art, etc. Leave an option for people to send you messages, with whatever privacy you see fitting. In case you worry about it, Mastodon is a known alternative to Twitter, and Twitter is very toxic nowadays, so people will find it reasonable that you have a Mastodon account instead.
There’s also Pixelfed, if you like photos. It is an alternative to Instagram. If you have a hobby, post often about it. I don’t know, cooking, skating, painting… Anyway, make it a beautiful gallery of your life and fewer people will question why Pixelfed and not Instagram. You can always excuse yourself saying you don’t like so many business accounts on Instagram or whatever excuse, and that you like to give new things a try.
Finally, a WordPress or Plume or WriteFreely blog may be a great opportunity to write and share your ideas. It is kind of retro to have a blog, I guess, but it is a good way for people to get to know you better. You may even find something you’re passionate about and create a community. Some people start with two or three pieces of advice about something (like gardening) and end up with a blog full of useful articles and a community that follows them. Blogs usually have an option for private e-mails and a redirection to other social media, so you can have your Mastodon and/or Pixelfed account attached.
Why the Fediverse? You don’t sell your soul to corporations, you help it grow, you get a better community.
But give it a second thought, though. Having a social media profile can be exhausting. I personally obsess over it being a good reflection of who I am, respectful in the things I say, with beautiful images, with colors and themes that reflect my personality, with enough of my real self so that people know me but not enough that they cringe or judge me negatively. My objectives (and perfectionism) make it chaotic after a while, and the profile gets more and more inauthentic. That’s why I don’t have any at the moment. It can also bring some social drama, so, yeah, ponder the pros and cons.
About 7 years back I joined everything there was, Instagram, SnapChat, Facebook, Twitter. Then I started using Reddit, honestly the best social media at that time. Amazing repository for information (still is). I can tell you now that all those platforms are all garbage. They’re like 70% bot content and 20% reposts by actual people, maybe 10% are actual original posts. It’s so hard to find something that is authentic and new on the internet nowadays.
Lemmy, Mastadon, the Fediverse as a whole at this point in time, has some of the best content every. Although small and not vast, the content is top notch. I scroll everyday and very often find some of the most engaging discussions in any of the subs, AskLemmy for example.
Now, if you’re going to start using social media, I suggest you use it containerized (vm) or use a new computer with a burner cell number (redpocket is like $30/year on ebay). Just to see garbage for yourself.
Edit: oh yeah, at some point I did use TikTok. You can check it out on proxitok I think. That shit is poison. I personally sifted through and saw the shit for what it really is (spyware that is coated in social media). Dancing girls everywhere, reddit voiceovers, people pointing at things over original content, some of the most cringe content known to mankind.
