I will complain a little about the bullying on various Mastodon sites relative to the use or the lack of use of “Content Warning” functions. The thread started with a post by Aleen Simms at https://wandering.shop/@aleen/109545360209489228 shows people beating up on her for no good reason. The bullying, denigration, and worse is frankly uncalled for. Aleen has a very good point when it comes to artists promoting their work.

I don’t miss “starving artists” shows at the I-X Center near Cleveland Hopkins Airport. They were frequent features being advertised while I was growing up in Cleveland. Social media outlets have reduced the need for them somewhat these days but with Twitter dying and Facebook going downhill we’re shifting back to that.

All this debate over the use of content warnings on Mastodon is getting ridiculous. We didn’t need them in the days of StatusNet. We didn’t have them on pump.io. GNU Social didn’t have them. Diaspora* didn’t have them. Despite the claims that “original gangsta” people in the fediverse have used content warnings since the beginning they’re actually an innovation that did not exist until 2016. Yes, that does mean that for the first eight years of the fediverse there were no content warnings at all. I was there in the beginning of the fediverse over fourteen years ago. Many of these “OG tooter” people are simply posers who ignore that which came before.

There is a reason I try to write as much as I can in my blog. In short, it is my blog. I don’t really intend to use content warnings. I want to follow the science as mentioned by a couple Australian professors that these warnings probably aren’t all that useful.

I wander into the weirdest parts of the Internet, I guess.