(insta)deactivated
After much searching through menus and settings (and an unwillingness on the part of the app on the iPad to scroll down far enough to hit the "deactivate" button requiring me to go to a computer), finally hit the deactivate button (six days early, but to hell with it: those who wanted to stay connected have already done so, the rest, bye): my Insta-presence is no more. Aside from that one video with the "get that shit out of my face" vegan frog (which I did watch about 35 times before hitting deactivate: that "motherfucker stop, STOP!" shriek kills me every time), I don't miss any of it.
(And when Threads launched, I realized I didn't really need or want another microblogging conversation platform: that's what this space and the Fediverse are for / Note: still want to use the FV for my comment system here; running out of time before the next annual bill comes due.)
Didn't go full delete on Insta because I'm enough of a shit that I don't want the other Tylers Weaver to have that account name. I've protected it long enough, even added the extra W to myself, across multiple platforms and decades, this being my third (holy shit).
Related/un–: I anticipate the day that some startup buys (or pulls a Muskian coup on SpaceKaren himself) the Twitter name and the rights and the bird and brings it back, sort of like Twinkies and PBR, banking on nostalgia as a (highly viable) business model. As someone rightly said, the brand was the only thing that didn't need fixing at Twitter.
Anyhow byebye massive communication/advertising conglomerate techbro companies. We had our laughs and our cries and our successes and our failures but it's time to move on. Internet dinosaur powers: activate.
