I hope that this works because apparently even though I'm signed up on lemmy.world and visiting a sub native to lemmy.world, all that this subreddit loads for me is one single post from 2024 (and yet I can see all posts from my myserv.one instance).

I don't mind if no one reads this, I just need to get my experience of my chest, especially my Bluesky experience over these last couple of months.

I've tried Twitter on and off, well before Musk, and it never really clicked for me. I could sort of see the appeal but largely it came across as a sea of jocks and trendy assholes. So it was never much of a big deal for me to just walk away from it.

Enter Bluesky. I was attracted by its left wing reputation and all the cool queer people there. But I'm afraid that over all, it didn't do much to change my opinion that this sort of social media is for the 'cool' kids, cliques and people who prize their image above all else.

In the beginning it was pretty fun. I used the same profile pic and account name as here and didn't list my age in my profile. And I was having enough fun to stick around. But after the 3rd DM from someone that I'm pretty sure was a teenager, I decided to do the right thing and mention my age on my profile. I also decided to use my real name and add an actual photo of me, making it clear that I'm AMAB despite my tastes and the company I want to keep. And I can tell you, from that moment, the little bit of fun that I was having there completely dried up. From that point on, the only people following me were porn bots and these weird accounts with no posts that look like they lifted the profile pic from the 'management' section of a website somewhere.

Now, to be fair, there were a few cool people in my age group (38) that I followed but most are married with 2.5 kids and are these bluewave people where every second post is a picture of Trump's face or Kamala Harris. And as far as men go, my faith and trust is also at an all time low at this point. But that still doesn't make me feel any less like a reject piece of shit.

I also did something there that I will forever regret. While I had my real name and photo up, I decided to take the major step of telling the world that I realised I'm non-binary a couple of years ago. My heart was in my fucking throat because I was now putting myself at risk of people in the real world finding out what's been going on with me. And the reception that I got to that was crickets chirping. Not even the few clearly NB / trans / non-conforming people that had deemed me worthy enough for a follow back chipped in with anything. I ended up deleting the post in shame 24 hours later and reverting back to anonymity.

So yeah, Bluesky was largely heart breaking for me and made me feel a dog desperately scratching at the door to get in somewhere. I don't know how people do it. Every attempt at socializing that fails, and the endless tweaking of my profile to try and attract some friends feels pretty degrading to me. I WAY prefer a platform like this where I can join a conversation about She-ra and the Princesses of Power and gush about how rad Adora is if I want. And actually get feedback and someone to let me know that I'm alive without taking a look at my profile picture or age and judging me before the conversation has even started. I just wish this place worked better. Thanks for listening.