I had reached my fill with Twitter a while back, and I never really engaged in Reddit because it was so full of unpleasantness. Then after a while, some on-again-off-again with Facebook led me through the election of 2016. Then I was on a Facebook page that was for Hillary Clinton that got renamed and generalized for progressive political activism and during a conversation there the tone police came after me about a comment I had made. That led me to dumping that Facebook page, and as I was doing that I looked over my news feed and realized that it was either political awfulness and suffering or cats. And even the cats were all injured or dying. I don't mind being there when someone loses a companion, but the barrage was too much. Too many pictures of the Cheeto, too many stories of people murdering or torturing animals, and too many "Sponsored Links" mixing it all up. It made my stomach turn, all this suffering and then peddlers and their bullshit in the Sponsored Links.
I just couldn't take it anymore, so I planned to leave Facebook. To break myself of the habit of that site. I was looking for another place and right about then I got my beta invite for Imzy. I clicked on the invite and signed up. It was remarkably fitting, that the moment I became a digitial refugee from the services I had used, Imzy showed up with an invite. I consider it kismet, even to this day. Then I announced on Facebook that I would check in every once in a while, but that if people really wanted to follow me they would follow me to Imzy. A beautiful place where the cesspool of all the trolls and ugly humanity hasn't ruined yet. Like walking onto the lot at Disneyworld or perhaps Rivendell. The beauty and rightness here are striking.
That's my Imzy story. This is my home online. The only reason I even log into Facebook anymore is to drop a line every once in a great while to remind my family that I still exist.
I used to be a huge Redditor, but never really liked how the site was run - I had problems with just how much terrible stuff (racist "jokes", misogyny, etc) was in there, but never really knew about an alternative that actually went against these things.
ShitRedditSays and GamerGhazi were my most frequented subreddits, and from there on I heard a lot about Imzy, and I guess I just got curious. Since it has a mobile app, I'm no longer using Reddit, and I'm very happy about it. :)
I am. I was disgusted with reddit's direction a very long time ago. I remember years before 2xchromosomes ever became a default, and I was still reading them regularly, I asked for suggestions for other places like reddit that weren't so full of hate. I got my ass handed to me. I was shocked at how vehement the reactions were to my question, which asked not for a replacement, but for another place to visit along with reddit. One comment specifically suggested I "not let the door hit my ass on the way out". I mark that as the beginning of a major shift in my reading habits. If even 2x was so prone to anger, where was I supposed to go for just normal conversation with rational human beings? SRS was still too acerbic for me, and at the time I tried it out, was very focused on quoting and discussing the most hateful and ignorant bits of reddit. I was trying to avoid that. I eventually discovered TrollX, but once 2x went default, tx became a sort of replacement 2x, and that brought a lot of arguments into being as to what tx should be (personally I was on the fence, believing there was room for both types of posts, though a tagging system would have been super helpful for filtering purposes), and of course a lot more trolls started to find it and made it just as awful. When the angry yam came into the spotlight, it unfortunately seeped into tx as well. Suddenly tx was full of posts discussing the latest horrible thing the angry yam or his followers had said or done. I wouldn't have minded that if I could filter it, or if it hadn't also brought in the trolls. Not just outright trolls, but concern trolls, arguing that nobody was giving the racist sexist abusive lying angry yam a fair chance and using that horrible technique they've picked up by inverting reality so it's rational, open minded people who are the horrible ones, and then finding other posts to troll in that had nothing to do with the angry yam, but while they were there, they might as well spread their horribleness as widely as possible, right? And ignoring or RES-tagging them did nothing, because rarely was it the same name turning up twice. I tried to fight against the influx but... I have my own issues which eventually made me get to that point where I'd start typing in the url for tx and stop, because I didn't feel up to seeing all that sort of thing that day.
Man, just recounting this I can feel my stomach and my throat tensing up. The worst part of this whole angry yam thing has definitely been understanding just how widely spread his attitudes are. I always questioned how many people I knew or met in a day who secretly harbored the hateful opinions I saw so regularly online, but... yeah. Anyway, around that time someone in tx mentioned imzy. I started poking around, really almost afraid to hope for anything nice, but while it still heavily features the angry yam (and I agree with what someone else suggested elsewhere on imzy - the ability to filter certain subjects when you just don't feel up to reading them would be awesome) and I've run into a few people who seem to just want to fight, or just want to argue that it's the people who hate everything the angry yam stands for that are the intolerant ones, the signal to noise ratio is countless times better here than it was on reddit even when I first started using it. It's a lot more relaxing here, and I feel like I can get headlines and social discussion with only rare derails by people looking to make trouble. I still poke my head into reddit on my phone occasionally when I'm standing around bored somewhere and I've already read my feeds and my news reader, but I can't remember the last time I commented, and I rarely get beyond a topic or two as it so quickly descents into ... well, reddit.
Well, the short version is: imzy is the equivalent of the first breath of fresh air after being stuck in an overflowing outhouse for years. And so am I, thank you!
A couple of my friends who are fannishly inclined told me about it back in August when they were looking at it as a possible new platform for fandom-type endeavours. Intrigued by a site that was primarily focused on communities rather than individuals, I followed them here. I stayed, they didn't. Ah well.
I had reached my fill with Twitter a while back, and I never really engaged in Reddit because it was so full of unpleasantness. Then after a while, some on-again-off-again with Facebook led me through the election of 2016. Then I was on a Facebook page that was for Hillary Clinton that got renamed and generalized for progressive political activism and during a conversation there the tone police came after me about a comment I had made. That led me to dumping that Facebook page, and as I was doing that I looked over my news feed and realized that it was either political awfulness and suffering or cats. And even the cats were all injured or dying. I don't mind being there when someone loses a companion, but the barrage was too much. Too many pictures of the Cheeto, too many stories of people murdering or torturing animals, and too many "Sponsored Links" mixing it all up. It made my stomach turn, all this suffering and then peddlers and their bullshit in the Sponsored Links.
I just couldn't take it anymore, so I planned to leave Facebook. To break myself of the habit of that site. I was looking for another place and right about then I got my beta invite for Imzy. I clicked on the invite and signed up. It was remarkably fitting, that the moment I became a digitial refugee from the services I had used, Imzy showed up with an invite. I consider it kismet, even to this day. Then I announced on Facebook that I would check in every once in a while, but that if people really wanted to follow me they would follow me to Imzy. A beautiful place where the cesspool of all the trolls and ugly humanity hasn't ruined yet. Like walking onto the lot at Disneyworld or perhaps Rivendell. The beauty and rightness here are striking.
That's my Imzy story. This is my home online. The only reason I even log into Facebook anymore is to drop a line every once in a great while to remind my family that I still exist.
Great story! Let's hope Imzy stays that nice haven away from all the terrible stuff. :)
I used to be a huge Redditor, but never really liked how the site was run - I had problems with just how much terrible stuff (racist "jokes", misogyny, etc) was in there, but never really knew about an alternative that actually went against these things.
ShitRedditSays and GamerGhazi were my most frequented subreddits, and from there on I heard a lot about Imzy, and I guess I just got curious. Since it has a mobile app, I'm no longer using Reddit, and I'm very happy about it. :)
I have wondered how many of the most fervent Imzynauts are former Redditors. I'd love to see a poll along those lines, maybe in /Feedback?
This would certainly be interesting to know. I bet a huge portion are former Redditors.
I am. I was disgusted with reddit's direction a very long time ago. I remember years before 2xchromosomes ever became a default, and I was still reading them regularly, I asked for suggestions for other places like reddit that weren't so full of hate. I got my ass handed to me. I was shocked at how vehement the reactions were to my question, which asked not for a replacement, but for another place to visit along with reddit. One comment specifically suggested I "not let the door hit my ass on the way out". I mark that as the beginning of a major shift in my reading habits. If even 2x was so prone to anger, where was I supposed to go for just normal conversation with rational human beings? SRS was still too acerbic for me, and at the time I tried it out, was very focused on quoting and discussing the most hateful and ignorant bits of reddit. I was trying to avoid that. I eventually discovered TrollX, but once 2x went default, tx became a sort of replacement 2x, and that brought a lot of arguments into being as to what tx should be (personally I was on the fence, believing there was room for both types of posts, though a tagging system would have been super helpful for filtering purposes), and of course a lot more trolls started to find it and made it just as awful. When the angry yam came into the spotlight, it unfortunately seeped into tx as well. Suddenly tx was full of posts discussing the latest horrible thing the angry yam or his followers had said or done. I wouldn't have minded that if I could filter it, or if it hadn't also brought in the trolls. Not just outright trolls, but concern trolls, arguing that nobody was giving the racist sexist abusive lying angry yam a fair chance and using that horrible technique they've picked up by inverting reality so it's rational, open minded people who are the horrible ones, and then finding other posts to troll in that had nothing to do with the angry yam, but while they were there, they might as well spread their horribleness as widely as possible, right? And ignoring or RES-tagging them did nothing, because rarely was it the same name turning up twice. I tried to fight against the influx but... I have my own issues which eventually made me get to that point where I'd start typing in the url for tx and stop, because I didn't feel up to seeing all that sort of thing that day.
Man, just recounting this I can feel my stomach and my throat tensing up. The worst part of this whole angry yam thing has definitely been understanding just how widely spread his attitudes are. I always questioned how many people I knew or met in a day who secretly harbored the hateful opinions I saw so regularly online, but... yeah. Anyway, around that time someone in tx mentioned imzy. I started poking around, really almost afraid to hope for anything nice, but while it still heavily features the angry yam (and I agree with what someone else suggested elsewhere on imzy - the ability to filter certain subjects when you just don't feel up to reading them would be awesome) and I've run into a few people who seem to just want to fight, or just want to argue that it's the people who hate everything the angry yam stands for that are the intolerant ones, the signal to noise ratio is countless times better here than it was on reddit even when I first started using it. It's a lot more relaxing here, and I feel like I can get headlines and social discussion with only rare derails by people looking to make trouble. I still poke my head into reddit on my phone occasionally when I'm standing around bored somewhere and I've already read my feeds and my news reader, but I can't remember the last time I commented, and I rarely get beyond a topic or two as it so quickly descents into ... well, reddit.
I am unfamiliar enough with reddit that there were many parts of this comment I couldn't even parse. :) But I'm glad you found your way here.
Well, the short version is: imzy is the equivalent of the first breath of fresh air after being stuck in an overflowing outhouse for years. And so am I, thank you!
This is a great question!
A couple of my friends who are fannishly inclined told me about it back in August when they were looking at it as a possible new platform for fandom-type endeavours. Intrigued by a site that was primarily focused on communities rather than individuals, I followed them here. I stayed, they didn't. Ah well.