Rethinking my social media presence

If there is one clear path in my social media activities, it is inconsistency. It is inconsistency caused by changing platforms, changing ambitions and unpredictable motivation to put effort in. 'Social Media' has always a part of my Internet experience, long before 'Social Media' became a thing or even the word 'blogging' was coined. It was just people putting up stories on their personal webpage. Mostly similar to this.

The euphoria about the Internet as a way to connect people on a equal basis is long gone. But the technology can still serve you and me, al whilst it is also used for commercial activities, propaganda and politics.

In my 'new' social media presence, I want to address the fact that I have multiple interests that have their own network of people connecting to them. My wife has more social media accounts than I can keep op with, cleary separating different interests into separate accounts. On the Fediverse the whole hashtag thing should help filter things, but I believe the a lot of people, including myself, find it useful if content from people on different subjects is linked to different personas.

So you might end up following Eelco the Nerd and Eelco the Scout, well knowing that this is the same human, but making sure you only read the ramblings about things that might interest you. Thus skipping the Eelco In The Garden account completely, because you don't have any interest in chickens, eggs or chickenpoop.

There is still the issue of the network effect, where Eelco the Nerd can find lots of people to interact with, but Eelco the Scout not so much. I still have to find a subtle way to get more people to open platforms. Introducing more consistency on my part the first step towards that.

Next on my TODO list is finding the technology stack to do this. It is clear I want to manage multiple personas. But I also want to self-host it, preferably running as a container on my Raspberry Pi. 100% freedom, running on my own hardware from my own Internet connection at home. Also, this tool should allow for proper filtering all kinds of things people post from their personas that I find less interesting/useful. Yes, this is a clear filter bubble, but I only see it as a way to enjoy myself on the weekend, not as a tool for, let’s say, political involvement.

Good morning to you, and thank you for following along!