Social media migration
In search of a professional network, like-minded people, community, showcases, and opportunities.
As I started to write this blog, I had no idea what to call it. But after completing it, Migration is the correct word I think.
According to Khan Academy;
If you’re into technology you probably know that, after Elon took Twitter, there’s a social media migration happening. A lot of new platforms started to open their doors and people started to move. While some chose to settle in their newfound land, some went back to Twitter, the primary reason being the lack of audience.
I have not settled, there is no rush. I’m still looking.
Context
I started to experience information overload a few years back, I think around Corona or maybe before that. But I didn’t take it very seriously then. First of all, I didn’t know much about this fatigue with information. Well, I thought it was a temporary setback.
I lost interest in reading about career-related, life-related, and exploring new things, etc. I mean, I read, but after opening two or more links and posts, I started to feel tired. I just wanted to close tabs ASAP.
I had this habit of collecting many resources because I was so eager to learn and I couldn’t even think about losing an important thing. Like, if I didn’t learn that carousel right now, I felt that I was lagging!
So naturally I followed and subscribed to a lot of influencers and advocates. I believe these continued actions led to this trigger.
Burnout is not a made-up word or another term for laziness. It is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion! People who have experienced this might understand better.
Every generation sees burnout from different perspectives while some from all these use a progressive lens to understand better. I have huge respect for these people!
We all live in different atmospheres, so, I believe it is not a matter of understanding in binary. Everyone is battling their own unique challenges, right?
The unintentional culprits were;
1. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is like a stressful platform for me. Whenever I open LinkedIn, the feed gives me anxiety! I constantly started to feel lag in my career, felt like not achieving anything, had imposter syndrome, and many more issues. Some people even started to guilt-tripping.
I’m happy that you are starting a new position in a famous company, but I don’t want that to reflect as questioning my existence. I thought about it a lot. It is not jealousy. I don’t want distractions and unwanted updates. That’s all.
But in reality, I was where I was meant to be. Everyone's journey is different, right?
I know that I have the option to fine-tune or unfollow everything, but that didn't work out as expected. Either there is no content or repeated content or content overload.
I decided not to open LinkedIn anymore. But it is the place where professionals come to “hang out”. And it is kind of an important place to get more opportunities and all. So I didn't close my LinkedIn account - kind of in limbo mode.
Below, you can read my experience with “hiring messages” on LinkedIn.
2. Instagram
I only follow designs, technologies, cat videos, memes, and movie-related accounts on Instagram. I’m using it for only that purpose. No personal or colleague connections.
Instagram design bubble; if I follow mostly design-related people, my feed is full of design resources. And then it is a bubble. It is good and it is bad. As time went on, some people started to repost the same type of content but in different colors and fonts!
So I started to unfollow a lot of accounts and hide posts.
This experience is one of the reasons why I built Instances later. I said this1 in the footer specifically. On an unrelated note, there are a lot of directories now, I wonder why and what caused this surge?!
I’m not maintaining Instances with any monetary benefits. I just want it there when people need it.
3. Newsletters
I unsubscribed a lot of newsletters. While performing this task, I realized that I don't open 80 - 90% of the newsletter emails because of Schrodinger’s cat2 scenario.
Some emails were full of useful content, but I don't want it daily. At the same time, I don’t want it to change to weekly because of the FOMO. As I said earlier, this situation makes more sense to the people who experienced this.
If I had the option to turn off the “subscribe pop-up” here and there on my blog, I’d have done so without hesitating. Unfortunately, I don't see any settings.
Aftermath
Slowly I went into silos. That is the extreme opposite of what I went through earlier!
At some point, I couldn't even decide what to read, or where to engage. It became absolute chaos. I struggled to find that balance.
I think this is why I don’t like to share my blogs and YouTube videos. I don’t want to annoy people. 98% of people in my circle don’t know anything about these. But lately, if the occasion is asking for it, I share a detailed blog I may have written on the subject along with my reply (only on a few platforms, I’m testing out).
But at the same time, when I see some people subscribe to my blog out of nowhere, I don't know how to see that. They’re giving their not-burner email IDs! It is a big deal and responsibility I believe.
I know that Substack is not a blogging platform. So the chances of finding a like-minded community here are near zero in my understanding. Google picks up things but not like they do with Twitter.
Now that AI-generated content flood is here, SEO feels like a dead end but still hopeful, let’s see about that.
What do I want?
I just need a place to share
My thoughts in text format and some of my blog posts.
A feed with content, based on my following and an algorithmic feed.
Images and embedding videos.
Discuss topics with like-minded people.
Read genuine stories of founders, entrepreneurs, and contributors - embedding other platforms is enough I guess.
Discover new platforms and tools.
Finding opportunities.
I know that I just described Twitter, Dribbble, Product Hunt, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn. But let me clarify one thing. I’m not expecting an “everything app”.
Twitter is chaos. It’s like a burning train with stand-up comedies, mind-blowing thoughts, and real-time news/conspiracy theories with a mental asylum, and a prison. It’s too much for me. I’d like a peaceful life.
Many industry leaders are calling Twitter the new Dribbble, but in my opinion, I don't want that. Twitter is also a political area and you can't just close your eyes towards everything. Their main point is we should be active where clients are active. I agree with that, but at what cost? What about our mental health?
Dribble is kind of dead, I guess. I lost interest in publishing something there. I don't want to publish aesthetically pleasing designs all the time. There’s a saying in the design industry “That looks like a Dribbble design”. I guess you know that right? I don't feel any value. And it looks like they're shifting the focus of the platform into something else. I clearly didn't understand it yet. But I know that they're constantly pushing users towards the pro plan which I don't want to subscribe to.
Product Hunt is good, but they’re not giving much thought to the “discussion” section, which is kind of a missed opportunity I think. Or they don’t want to?
Reddit is brutal. I don't have a problem with anonymous profiles. But some are really arrogant. I have mixed feelings about Reddit. Also, I don't like their interface.
As you know, YouTube is a monopoly, and Substack also planning to create its version of a video-sharing network. Let’s wait for other launches.
I was really happy when Substack launched Notes.
New emerging platforms
Posts
While searching for new platforms I stumbled on Posts.
Peerlist
And recently I found one more platform - Peerlist. But if I remember correctly, I joined this platform months ago but deleted it - no specific reasons I think.
As you know, the current market and economy are boosting engineering-driven platforms. I believe that design is equally important, but it seems that people will only care about the design when their growth hits somewhere and it struggles to scale.
Design is not something that comes secondary. I don't see it like that, there’s no battle between design and engineering when building a product. The idea is, that it should be usable and working and at the same time push innovations.
One important thing I find interesting about these platforms is the founders (Andy Chung and Akash Bhadange). Both of them are coming from a design background. I only knew two designer founders before that; Brian Chesky and Dylan Field.
Back on 1 December, I saw a reply from Andy Chung and it created curiosity, so I asked him about his journey and he replied with a link. I like to read experiences like this. This gives me ideas and interesting thoughts and the importance of perspectives.
Thoughts…
Right now, both these platforms have a designer majority. At least that’s how I experience while browsing these sites. I do not see this as a problem, but I expect more other perspectives too.
One of the reasons I find people hesitate to leave Twitter is that they have a huge audience there. That is why people say Twitter is the new Dribbble. It was Instagram a few months back, but it feels like a saturated area now.
But I really wonder why the industry experts and leaders don’t call out dark patterns and worst user experiences while most of them are saying they care about users and all. Everything is okay and can be discarded in the name of free speech???
I also like and want free speech in communication. But not in its absolute terms. That’s like a step towards anarchy - A different topic, leaving it for another time.
So if you're reading this, give a chance to these start-ups.
There’s no promotion or referral link here and I have no monetary or other benefits. I’m saying this because I like start-ups and when it is a social media start-up, you need active people from multiple divisions.
What do I expect?
A place for designers, developers, other individual contributors, freelancers, VCs, founders and entrepreneurs.
The reason is that, right now I think, I no longer need a designer’s bubble. That feels like a dead end to me. Things are changing3. I’d like to see everyone’s genuine thoughts and works, not just out-of-context designs.
Dribbble’s product diversion and Product Hunt’s lack of interest in the discussion section create a place for this. Twitter and LinkedIn could have acquired this place, but they're not niching down. I already expressed my thoughts about these giants above.
What I look for in communities…
Is the majority contributing genuinely or for just marketing only?
Is there a basic rule system in place to keep the momentum and sanity?
I understand and agree that the moderation of the content is difficult, time-consuming, and costly. So, I wish all the best to both these founders and all others who are building a platform for this specific need.
I won't send any updates or notifications. Bookmark this and feel free to return whenever you like – it's entirely up to you.
I’m unsure whether the content in the emails is valuable or not. It's like being useful or irrelevant and more ads. So I kept it unread.
Look at the current state of the Design job market!