Hi, friends. Remember in an previous post when I mentioned that we were heading into Mercury Retrograde? No shit, right? Let me tell you that yesterday was a day! I won’t go into details, but it was seriously out of whack. So this morning to prepare myself, I pulled the cards and asked: What should I be aware of today? And what should I do to handle it? For the spread I used Fifth Spirit Tarot.
I’m not going to share what I saw for myself because believe it or not, it’s not really something I want out there. But I can tell you that those freakin’ cards were right on as usual. Feel free to share your interpretation!
LET’S try to be social
About an hour ago, my husband asked me if anyone uses SnapChat anymore. I don’t know, do they? I tried it for a week or so when it first launched, and I did it entirely for the filters, which I got bored of rather quickly. They were pretty cool, but my attention span is pretty short. And why would I want something I post to disappear in a few hours? Okay, I can think of a few reasons, but overall, not so much.
But then again, I still mostly use Facebook, which is a good indication of my age group. I occasionally post on Instagram, the frequency being another indication of my age group.
And that got me thinking about social media platforms.
I miss LiveJournal. I just looked it up to see if it still exists, and it does! Who knew! It was because of this platform and MySpace (yeah, I said it), that I got to know so many people in New Haven and on the goth scene. Of course, there was also a club called Flux and some very strong drinks poured by a wonderful bartender named Michael.
Remember the MySpace top 10? How many arguments did that cause? I can think of one very large one in my house.
For work, among other things, I’m a social media manager so I have taken certification classes and seminars and know quite a bit about it. Except TikTok. I mean, I can use it and I can run ads on it pretty successfully, but I cannot for the life of me figure out its algorithm. I only have a work account and I’m pretty much the only person who uses it so I have to wonder why (Why?!) some of the videos show up in my “For you” feed. Like this. And also like this. As I was scrolling to find examples, I came across one of those videos that you have to check the comments to understand what’s going on. All I’ll say is that it featured a fisherman taking caviar out of a very dead, yet not entirely still, fish. Now I have to go watch a ton of cat videos to get that out of my head. I’m not going to share it here, you’re welcome.
That’s the “For You” on my work account. We’re an esoteric book publisher.
I also use Twitter, I mean X, for work, but it’s kind of a cesspit. Even though I clearly love outbound links for SEO purposes, I’m not going to link this platform. I mean, why bother? The work accounts I follow are great, but some of the others, not so much. I am trying to remember when it launched–was it so confusing to use? I feel like the notification feature is a complete mess and sometimes I can’t even find the original post that the commentors are commenting on. Is it me?
I heard they had to take down the huge flashing X they put atop HQ because it gave people seizures. Need I say more?
*Note I did fact check that last statement and really it was a permit issue and not a seizure issue, and I guess that pretty much sums up the whole X debacle as well.
Maybe someday I’ll try Threads. You?
once upon a time there was no internet
And we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways without shoes.
The previous sentence isn’t true, although I did grow up in upstate New York where no one, at least at that time, had ever heard of a snow day.
Anyhow, I was reminded of the power of the internet and social media today during a discussion (on social media) about Rudy Guiliani of all people. I had shared a photo of a signed copy of the book he wrote. It literally says, “To Gia,” but I didn’t get it myself. That said, I thought it was an awesome gift. You can look up the book if you want, but there’s no need to give it any additional attention here.
Now, I know the Rudy of the last few years, but I also remember how he became a figurehead after 9/11, and I thought he did a really great job. I couldn’t understand what happened. And then, in the comments under the photo, I leaned a whole lot more about past Rudy that makes today’s Rudy a natural progression.
This isn’t about Rudy though, it’s about me not realizing these things were going on behind the scenes. I can definitely chalk some of it up to being self-absorbed in my teens and twenties (in the depressed, not vain way, although there was probably some of the latter too) and also privilege. But even back then I was pretty socially conscious. But I really think most of it was not having access to social media and all the sources now available online. Of course, American Online launched about that time and it offered all sorts of chat rooms, but did anyone use it for anything else? If you even had internet. For real, think about it–how limited was the information we had daily access to back then, for better or for worse. These weren’t the kinds of things you could look up in that set of encyclopedias your parents bought one by one from the supermarket.
I think I should step away from the keyboard now. Thank you for sticking with me to this point. May the happenings of Mercury Retrograde be in your favor.
I feel compelled to tell you
I did indeed spend way too much time obsessing about a hotel for Saturday after cancelling my room and actually found and booked one for $262 total. In Hell’s Kitchen no less–which is very different than the Hell’s Kitchen when I lived in the city, as is most of NYC.
Hi, I'm Gia. 