I had a bit of a rough week. My job has been taking advantage of me. It seems like daily, more gets added to my plate and less gets taken off. Friday was particularly tough, and when I got home, I laid down in bed with my MacBook and I clicked on a blog post that featured some movie titles. I thought those links would take me to IMDB, but instead I found myself routed to YouTube, where I got the “Disable your ad block message” on all four tabs. I saw red.
It was too much. Sure, I could have used Invidious or Brave or whatever work around, but I was just over it. I logged into my Google account, and I deleted my remaining services (Drive and Blogger). I had two email addresses I still needed to change from my Gmail, so I changed them and then deleted my entire Google Account. Then I finally, officially de-Googled, after twenty years or so. I’m done with Google and if I need YouTube (and I’m going out of my way to not need it) I’ll use Invidious.
I hadn’t deleted my Facebook/Instagram account, so I logged in and closed them out. Then yesterday when Spotify raised the prices again, I told my wife I’d move her playlists over to Apple Music and I cancelled Spotify.
I’m sure feeling taken advantage of at work is spilling over some, but I’m just really sick of all the stupidity going on. It doesn’t fit in with my quest for a simple life and I’m happy to press the delete key on all of it.
One of the more difficult spots for me right now is Mastodon. After years of being off or not engaging in social media, I finally found a nice group of folks to hang out with online. But despite all my filters, the political content is seeping through, and I’m just not interested in that. Then, one of the people I follow sort of got railroaded and shamed because of a blog post, and that’s the type of stuff I avoid social media over. Now, I’m in a spot where I want to move Mastodon Instances, and I’m just wondering if it’s time to delete that too. I’ve looked into using Masto.host and just hosting my own little Instance, but I’m not sure if I want to spend the $6 a month.
I’m starting to miss my super quiet blog where I just chatted with folks over email. I just don’t think I’m cut out for the modern internet.
The movie Perfect Days is still resonating with me, and I’ve seriously been trying to cultivate a more peaceful life. I’m putting in a good twenty minutes a day meditating and I’m looking to cut any sort of drama and BS out of my life. Sadly, that means a lot of the internet.
I’m not doing anything drastic right now, but I’m going to take a few days to try to imagine what the internet looks like in a more peaceful existence. Whatever parts of the internet frustrate me or piss me off, are getting the axe.
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