[natural219]

Funny. I just tried to post my yearly attempt to communicate with people on Reddit, which got taken down immediately by the auto-moderator.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1c0nuy6/it_is_impos...

It's infinitely sad that there's no place to just connect with people on the internet anymore. My post got 6 comments and a DM within the first minute, before the post got taken down. These people could have been new friends.

I've been through this cycle so many times I have long given up on trying to post on the internet. Logging on to find people and share thoughts only to be met with this massive wall of context and janitorial standards. I gave up like five years ago.

This is to say that the whole debate between "social media causes anxiety" and our landscape of social media causes anxiety makes this debate way too coarse. Getting on the internet between 2005-2012 felt happy, free, and was just a wellspring of community and connection. Post-2013 it's been a nightmarish hellscape on every platform.