Hello everyone. So this year has me feeling very isolated and I’m thinking about how easy it used to be to meet people online and how difficult it’s become to do so. There used to be tons of good places to meet people but internet culture has changed so much that now it’s virtually impossible. Even places like OkCupid (which used to be great for meeting new people, both platonically and otherwise) has devolved into a tinder-esque swipefest.
What are some good places to meet people online nowadays? Obviously fediverse/FOSS sorts of places are preferred but not 100% necessary. I just need new friends.
Same bruh, same… though I feel I’ve always had difficulty meeting people, online or off.
I feel like there was a golden age in the late 2000s and early 2010s when people were actively seeking to meet new people over the internet and it was very easy to do so. Nowadays people pretty much just use the internet to keep in touch with people they already know, with the exception of things like Tinder and OkCupid, which are increasingly only allowing users to meet people local to them. It’s strange. It’s not the world I thought we’d have in 2020.
I know in my case, the Internet was a very different place in the past - where you could jump into a different persona, and had a feeling of freedom to connect with people. Post-Snowden I’m hyper-aware that everything I do and say is being tracked, flagged, and analysed by corporations and the state. I find myself self-censoring and it has a Chilling Effect on what I do and say. It’s become more difficult to trust and be open online.
It changed before Snowden, I think. The character of the internet was already being corrupted.