Has it really been this long?

Hi again.

It's been a long time, hasn't it?

I do believe aside from YouTube spam, it's been nearly 10 months since I last wrote in here.

Some of it is a continuing lack of time. I only have so much time once Kylie goes to sleep to work on anything, and typically I either want to play a game, work on something with my channels, contribute to a tech site, write something, or just look up various things.

More often than not though, by the time Kylie is asleep around 10:30 or 11pm, I'm exhausted. I don't have the energy to do anything too strenuous and I'm creatively tapped out. Then I end up having trouble sleeping, or Kylie wakes up a few times, or the cats run me over, etc, etc.

Really though, it just comes down to not getting enough sleep consistently, working a different schedule at work, and a rambunctious child that isn't always so willing to go to bed, plus the fact that I'm still sharing an apartment with my ex and her oldest. There's always something to clean-up, something to take care, and that takes a toll as well.

That's not what I want to write about though.

See, recently my sister messaged me through Facebook and told me someone I used to know way back when had tried to reach her two years ago looking for me. I got curious and went into messenger and discovered I had 3 different message requests, all from at least two years ago, that I had NEVER seen. I had no idea because at the time, my privacy settings were much more strict than they are now. Facebook just didn't notify me and I had never noticed.

Two were from ex girlfriends that I hadn't spoken to in a long while. The third though was from a girl I had talked to many, many years ago. Hell, I'm not even sure what social media site it was to be honest (I have a guess in my head, but cannot confirm), but it pre-dated Facebook, Twitter, and even Myspace. I remembered chatting with her, but what we talked about escapes me. What I'll never forget is how uniquely her name is spelled. It's really hard to forget a name when it isn't spelled like you'd expect.

What she remembered was enjoying my writing, which makes sense. Years ago, I often bounced from site to site depending on where I could write. I know I used to occasionally write short stories, but much like even now, a lot of my writing was what was going on, things that agitated me, and a whole lot of woe-is-me type of nonsense that I try to avoid these days.

What struck me is how much effort this woman made to try and track me down two years ago. She tried to add me on Facebook (which was impossible at the time), and when that didn't work, she found my sister and tried to reach out to her. Of course, my sister didn't get it until this week, but once she did she let me know, I checked mine, and reached out to this woman.

Much to my surprise, she was excited that I messaged her, which in hindsight really shouldn't have surprised me. One of the things that I remember about her was she was one of the few genuinely nice people that I encountered in social media's infant stage, which is when we originally talked. While there are often still concerns about whether someone's who they say they are, back then it was even harder to pin down whether someone was legitimate or not. This woman seemed too good to be true, but she was always up for a chat.

It's also a reminder that distance isn't what determines friendships. She lives in a different state from me and has experienced some things of her own in the time we haven't talked, but I think that's only going to give us more to talk about in the coming days and months and I'm interested to see what her life has been like and see where it goes.

It kind of ties into what I had for a blog idea earlier about how many early "social media" sites were really just sites that were all about rating one another and so on. I remember a few that existed, "SWYDM (aka So Would You Do Me), "Hot or Not," and the shamelessly titled "RateMyBody," which was EXACTLY how you think it would be like.

Yet SWYDM in particular had a good run where I talked with people and had a lot of fun, even if at its core it was a relatively shallow site. The people I met though made it more than what it was originally meant to be.

Like a lot of things on the internet though, the site evolved and changed, and as it did, it became less appealing for me to hang around on. It eventually changed its name and I eventually stopped going there. I want to say it was after that   when I migrated to Myspace, where I spent a good portion of my time before it became such a waste and Facebook rose to prominence.

Life moved on, things changed, people came and went, and here I am, in December of 2016, still living with my ex, her oldest, and of course little Miss Kylie Brooke.

There's been a small influx of familiar faces of late though; people I used to know years ago finding me on Facebook and chatting it up on occasion. It's been nice to reconnect with some and remember why they were fun.

*Intermission*

I'm currently typing this blog post on my new keyboard, a Logitech G910 (the unboxing is one of the previous posts from this), which is part of why I'm anxious to write more in the future. Typing things up on a laptop keyboard is not fun and this keyboard is a HUGE improvement.

I also want to mention if you like old-school video game type of music (which I just found out is called Chiptune music), an artist by the name of tiasu is incredible. His stuff is on Spotify and if you want to buy individual albums, you can find him on Bandcamp. It's catchy, it's diverse, and I'm digging it so far.

*End Intermission*

I can't promise I'll be posting a lot in the immediate future, much like my YouTube and Twitch channels have been suffering. I do believe things will pick up once my living situation is different and in terms of games, I definitely think things will improve when I finally can put together a beast of a PC and upgrade the rest of my equipment as well.

I just know that there are some out there who really enjoy when I write and it's something I should really be making a better effort at when I have 20 minutes to sit down.

I do have my annual letter to Santa to compose, plus I do occasionally have ideas pop in my head. The key is to remember my Note allows me to write on the screen with the stylus even when the screen is off, which is a great way to jot down ideas.

I also want to record a vlog at least bi-weekly, but that's dependent on things happening in my life worth recording and talking about. They are fun to put together though, so I should try to do more, especially when I have such a fantastically awful story about Walmart and shoes for Kylie to relay.

I'm going to attempt to record that this weekend, but we'll see.

It is the holiday season though, so for the love of all things great, please be nice to each other. I know a lot of us are still trying to wrap our heads around Donald Trump being elected President, but it doesn't make it okay to act like pieces of crap towards each other. Show some love, be kind, and remember that person you're disgusted with is an actual human being and you really aren't any better than them.

I'll catch you guys later.

Maybe.

The Ups and Downs of Social Media :: Part 3 :: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Previous entries in this series:  Part 1  Part 2

The rise of social media, Twitter and Facebook in particular, entered us into a period of unprecedented access, not just to every day Joe, but movie stars, musicians, sports athletes and more.

Unlike Myspace, in which a large collection of friends meant little, a large following on Twitter actually carries some weight. Having tens of thousands of followers meant every tweet was being seen by an extraordinarily large number of people, especially if you were commenting on a subject of issue.

Interactions between various levels of celebrities and non-celebrities became more common-place, which allowed people to see their favorite personality as more of an every day normal person, rather than whatever they actually were. Many celebrities embraced the interaction with their fans and have used social media to connect better with their fans.

It can be a wonderful thing.

Imagine you tweet out to your favorite sports athlete and they actually respond. It seems like such a small thing, but you can sit and tell your friends that your favorite player, even if it were only one tweet, responded to you.

In the gaming forum, developers, publishers, and so on have embraced social media as a way to promote their game by communicating directly to the people who would be most interested in buying their game. Meanwhile, gamers can express their concerns about a game/product/or service with the responsible party and actually get a resolution relatively fast in some cases.

In my own experience, Twitter has immensely helped in resolving issues ranging from my cell phone service (T-Mobile's help account is very useful), my tv/internet service (Time Warner's hit or miss, but they typically at least try), to shipping issues. More often than not, when I've had a problem, someone's responded to at least check into the issue.

The previous types of interaction are part of the "good" side of social media. The interactions with other people can be tremendous. I've definitely enjoyed a majority of the sports aspect of Twitter, as the Cleveland fanbases are pretty solid when it comes to tweeting, even if they get a bit irrational at times. Some of my favorite accounts are those that specifically tweet only about sports.

I've had any number of people tweet at me with suggestions when I've been stumped by something, or just mention that I'm struggling with something. There are a lot of awesome people out there who just want to help, even if they're dealing with their own issues.

Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and roses. With the good, there often comes the bad, and in this day and age of your voice potentially reaching thousands, if not more, there are many who take pleasure in trying to tear others down.

The bad side of social media is that there are some who are always miserable and will try to rain on your parade. They don't see the good in any situation and simply exist to remind you that not everyone thinks rationally.

For instance, they tend to come out when their sports team is losing. Optimism is replaced with doom and gloom and all the players and coaches need to be fired.  They moan about the quality of the team they're watching and think anyone who sees the good is an idiot.  They will go so far as to tweet directly at players and badmouth the performance they just watched.

Of course, the gaming community isn't immune to it. Your choice of game, console, or graphical design can become the basis of an attack. On YouTube, people will comment that your video was trash or that you should just stop making videos. If you stream, especially if you're female, you will eventually get inflammatory comments directed your way.

Most people are just being nuisances though and are relatively harmless. They say their obnoxious things and move along. I've even had someone on Twitter demand an apology because I disputed something that he said. I laughed, said no, and never heard from him again.

Unfortunately, there are certain individuals who take "trolling" to a different level. They don't just stop at name-calling, but take it much further. They wish injury, or worse, death on a person because of a disagreement or something else that's trivial. They harass you until you are forced to stop going on your account.

These types of individuals represent the ugly of social media. They are the people who use it simply to spread their hate messages and can be absolutely vicious.

I used to follow someone who had to put their dog down, and one notorious troll essentially called them stupid for caring about an animal so much. Some will tell a sports athlete to go die just because they played poorly.  They don't just say nasty things, but come across as absolutely meaning the words they say.

They are the type that take it personal when you decide that you like something that a company did just because they have unwarranted hate towards that company. This is especially true when it comes to "console wars," where people pledge allegiance to the gaming console of their choice (or PC if they are in the "PC Master Race"). If you like Nintendo and they don't, they attack you just because you didn't choose a PS4. It's insane, it's unnecessary, and I keep hoping for it to stop.

Don't even get me started on the gamergate crowd.

They are relentless and if you block them, they will make a new name and continue the harassment. They are the worst of the worst and have no interest in actually engaging in a healthy debate. They make observations and opinions without actually gathering any facts, but who needs facts!

In the end, social media allows us to interact in ways that we never could before.

The question is, how are you using social media?

The Ups and Downs of Social Media :: Part 2 :: The Battle for Popularity

If you missed the previous entry on the precursors to social media, you can read it here.

By the early to mid 2000's, the number of people with access to the internet was growing and the idea of being able to network via the internet was starting to gain traction (note: this is not a fact; just based on my own memories). It wasn't going to be enough to just e-mail, instant message, and visit someone's web site. No, people wanted more and in 2003, the first shift in how the internet was used took place.

Myspace was, by many accounts, the originator of the social media site. Launched in 2003, the site quickly became the most popular social networking site, and at one point even passed Google as the most-visited site in the United States.  You could add friends, send messages, view each other's photos, share status updates, and basically anything else they wanted you to know.

For a while, Myspace was THE place to be, but to me, it quickly became a popularity contest. People would request you as a friend just to boost the number of friends they had, but had no real interest in interacting with you, which seemed to defeat the purpose of the site. This didn't deter me from using it for a long while, especially the blog feature, but as time went on, it became clear that Myspace was losing traction.

As recently as a couple months ago, I had checked back in to see what the site was like, and unfortunately, it hasn't improved much. The site was slow, glitchy, and seemed to be overly focused on musicians and other celebrities, making it less of a social media site and more of a gossip site to me.

Looking at the path it's taken since the peak of it's popularity in 2006, the site will likely never ascend back to the levels of Facebook, Twitter, and other sites.

A sobering number is the number employees that Myspace has. In 2009, it had around 1600 employees. 2 years later, that number was down to 200.

What happened?

Well, Facebook decided to open its doors to anyone rather than just college students, developed a cleaner interface than Myspace, and took off.

I was slow to embrace Facebook myself. I had learned to enjoy Myspace and I had met some fun people on there, plus it had allowed me to keep in touch with people I had already known in real life. While the repeated friend requests from people who weren't actually trying to be friends was annoying, it ultimately didn't bother me too much.

However, I had a few people I worked with who had migrated to Facebook and encouraged me to do so. Like anything, it was awkward at first, and I certainly struggled initially to understand what I was doing on there, but I eventually realized that more people I knew were on Facebook, and it had helped me reconnect with several people from high school, which was an unexpected bonus.

I can't remember the exact point in which I completely abandoned Myspace, but it was roughly around 2011 when I stopped logging in regularly and moved strictly on to Facebook. I didn't use any other types of social media for a couple of years, choosing to focus on Facebook if I used anything.

The thing that became increasingly annoying to me was how many different sites seemed to be popping up. I know I've only mentioned the major players so far, but there were others methods, other types of sites that existed for short periods of times.

Some were geared more towards professionals, but many just seemed to be geared towards creating popularity contests. I joined my fair share of smaller sites, but not enthusiastic about them, I typically didn't stick with them for long periods of time. Most people on the sites were flaky and not actually trying to expand social media horizons, and that remains true to an extent to this day.

I haven't mentioned Twitter yet and it's not a mistake. I avoided Twitter for a long, long time, mostly because I didn't see the point in limiting how many characters I could use to get a point across. Why limit myself to 140 when I could use as many as I want on Facebook?

It seemed silly.

Then, in February of 2013, I took the plunge.

I'll admit, my first tweet is underwhelming, but it was the exact reason I joined.  I had started my YouTube channel in September of 2012, and I quickly realized integrating it with Twitter could be beneficial (although not NEARLY as much as it could be). I made the decision after a couple of months and more than 2 years later, it's pretty much my preferred method of interacting with others online.

As of today, I've tweeted over 16,000 times, I have over 640 followers, and am following over 600 accounts I'm following. On Facebook, I have roughly 70 friends, but maybe post once or twice a week, and it's usually just pictures of my child. On Twitter, I sometimes post multiple tweets a day, and that doesn't include automated tweets that come from my YouTube channel and/or Twitch channel.

Twitter has proven to be an exceptional method of communicating with people and receiving feedback on virtually anything I say or do. While the number of interactions based on the number of followers is still pretty small, I've been reminded more than once that people are reading what I tweet, even if they aren't always responding.

I've also occasionally dabbled with Instagram, but that's not nearly as often and I've yet to find a good way to integrate it with my channel.

Google+ was an option as well, but I've never felt like that service ever fully realized what it was capable of, especially given Google's ownership of YouTube. The forced integration upset many users, although it didn't bother me all that much. I just never saw Google+ become what it could be, thus it was never really a viable option for me to completely jump in on.

In the end, I use Twitter the most, followed by Facebook, then Instagram in terms of the major social media sites, but the internet is full of smaller scale social sites.

Steam itself acts as a social media platform with it's chat/party system, and other sites such as the Gaming Tribe are trying new and unique ways to bring gamers together.  It's not perfect, but it's a good start, and not just because that site is always giving stuff away.

The internet has grown since the early 2000's and social media has become a major staple of people's lives. But is it really all it's cracked up to be sometimes?

Next, social media has brought people together, but it also can bring out the worst in individuals who thrive under anonymity.

The social network

I took a venture back onto Google+ today.

I had originally joined it last year as a substitute for Facebook since it seemed several people were talking about jumping ship to the shiny new social network that was getting a lot of publicity.

One year after my last post, I went back and took a peek at the site that never quite took off the way Google probably thought it would.  I attempted to change my profile picture on there and rediscovered why I abandoned it in the first place.  The site, while laid out nicely, is clunky at best.  It is nice to be able to link your profile to other Google-affiliated sites such as Youtube and Blogger, but ultimately it's cumbersome to try and do much of anything on the actual site.

It took 15 minutes, several reloads, and an act of God to get my profile picture changed.  As of this point, the other sites have not recognized this profile change and are still displaying the old picture.

There are some nice ideas behing Google+.  The hangout idea is nice, as is how easy they make it sound to video chat with multiple people.  I even like the Your Circle concept that they bring to the table.

Social networking is a funny thing overall though.  Myspace was all the rage up until a couple years ago when Facebook found its footing.  Now I bet most don't know anyone who regularly uses Myspace, or if you do, it's one sad, lonely individual who just can't let go of the site.  This despite how much complaining is done about Facebook and how it operates, especially when it pertains to individual security settings.

For those who complain, it's a social network, not a hide everything you put up because you're embarrassed by what you said, did, or wore.  Don't want people to see it?  Don't post it.  Or, go in, change your settings, and go about your life.  Yes, Facebook can frustrate with how slow it can be at times, how often there seem to be hiccups, but complaining about privacy on a social network is silly.

I've resisted the temptation to join Twitter thus far.  It's a battle I've gone back and forth on for sometime, partially because while I'm fascinated by the ability to follow athletes, celebrities, and local friends and see what they're all up to, it sounds like a simplified Facebook that's encouraged people to talk like idiots.

I just don't think I could devote time to a social platform when I already tend to ignore Facebook on a regular basis.

But again, the temptation to see what people are saying on Twitter is immense, plus the fact that so many companies are promoting themselves through Twitter and posting contests that are exclusive to that realm. 

It's actually amazing to me how many different ways people can express themselves anymore.  There are social sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogging sites such as Blogger and Tumblr, picture sites that allow sharing through multiple avenues, and even work networking sites that allow you to connect with coworkers in a social environment.

Additionally, most online stories allow people to comment on them, giving people even more ways to express themselves on whatever they think about, even if it has nothing to do with what the story is about.  This has led to things such as trolling (leaving comments simply to incite others that are usually negative or derogatory) and people arguing just because they can.

It allows someone like me an avenue to express my opinion on a number of items, although mine lately have been exclusive to the sporting world.

I could come in here and say the most inflammatory thing and get away with it.  It's the beauty of the internet and the social environment we live in now.

Twitter isn't that exciting though.  It seems the most outrageous tweets often are deleted within hours of being posted due to backlash caused.  Twitter has also led to several parody profiles of various celebritites.  Some embrace the idea that it isn't really the celebrity posting, others try to convince it is who they say they are.

In the end, it doesn't matter how you choose to express yourself.  Me?  I've stuck with this blog, my Facebook page, and occasionally in my Youtube videos that I've posted.  Whether I expand or not depends on whether there's an audience for it.  I'm sure I could boost my Youtube numbers by posting more on various platforms, but I'm not the self-promoting type.

Today I went back onto Google+, but it doesn't seem likely that I'll be back anytime soon.  I'll stick with what I already have.