My alternative to social media
Like many of my generation, I still gravitate towards Facebook. TikTok and Snapchat passed me by, Twitter feels strange under its new name, and even Instagram remains slightly alien. All of them, however, come with the same baggage: adverts, algorithms and ever-changing rules.
I wanted something with more freedom. Something I could control.
Hence the blog, where all design and content changes are mine to make; not some marketing team sat in a trendy office on expensive overfilled goose-down sofas surrounded by bean-bags and wall posters with inspirational ’life’ quotes.
If people like it, they’ll read it. If they don’t, they won’t.
The content is mostly about travel, loosely organised, with the occasional detour into whatever else I feel like writing about. It sits somewhere between a journal and diary with ‘posts’ structured chronologically but with ‘pages’ (like this) designed to give it some structure. The site is hopefully designed to handle both without becoming too cluttered. One day it may replace Facebook for me entirely, especially as Zuckerberg’s minions have a habit of “improving” things for the worse, and feeding me stuff I don’t want to see.
Having a personal website also makes staying in touch while travelling refreshingly simple. I share the homepage; if someone wants to follow up with a message, they can. No subscriptions, no sign-ups, no barriers. I’ve made some genuinely good friends this way.
I’m not interested in monetising it either. Too many travel blogs are weighed down by adverts and relentless marketing pop-ups. I have one promotional link, HPB, and that’s not even my own, and I’ll probably remove that one day too.
A Brief Word on Facebook
I joined Facebook quite late and more than a decade after Friends Reunited gave the UK its first taste of online reconnections back in the year 2000. It’s a shame it folded.
So being my main social media outlet, I still dip in to Facebook occasionally to see what friends and family are up to. I like reading what they have posted and what’s going on in their lives.
I stopped using it as a platform to offer alternative political views a long time ago, after discovering that to do so is rather futile. No matter how well researched my end of the discussion was, I’d often end up receiving a one line emotionally driven shallow response. C’est la vie!
These days I post sparingly, usually around once a fortnight, often early on a Saturday morning and after I have returned from my travels. My partner’s daughter thinks this is a cynical ploy to increase the number of “likes”, but in reality, now that I’m retired, it’s simply nice to have a routine. In any case, I only have a few hundred Facebook friends, far fewer than the number of people who stumble across my travel blog by accident via Google, probably while searching for something else entirely.
My Facebook friends come from all walks of life: liberal lefties (like me), anarchists, conspiracy theorists, religious devotees of multiple faiths (they can’t all be right), atheists, spiritualists, millionaires, retirees, students, and even a few people I jokingly describe as right-wing-goose-steppers. BUT, so long as the overlap in the friendship Venn diagram is big enough (and views are not excessive in the extreme) I’m happy to ignore differences. Well, let’s face it, they put up with me! I rarely block anyone, but I was forced to with one chap, when he crossed a line a few years ago (it’s only happened once).
A while ago, after I’d been posting regular accounts of my travels on Facebook, a few friends independently suggested I start a travel blog or even write a book. I like to think most of these suggestions were genuine, though I suspect a few people were keen to get this prolific writer and photographer off their Facebook feed! My posts were starting to resemble a blog anyway, so that’s what I did.
While travelling, I initially fell into the trap of adding people I’d just met as a Facebook friend, especially following a few beers and after they’d become my newest and bestest buddy. A year down the line and I’d end up wondering who they were, especially when they were sat alongside close friends and family members. So these days I’m little more selective. For me, travel lends itself to WhatsApp, whilst Facebook is mainly for people I’ve known well and for a long time, old school buddies, ex work colleagues and those I’ve spent time with socialising face to face.
Other Social media accounts
“What’s your Insta?” is often a default question I hear when travelling. I have an account – It gathers dust.
Snapchat
I don’t have an account.
TikTok
I had a look once, all I could see was lots of young scantily clad females cavorting. Then was told that it’s algorithms are carefully designed to feed you stuff you have shown interest in – so that was the end of that! I don’t have an account.
Twitter/X
When I am rich and famous – so never!
I made one post on this platform in 20 years – and that was to say I was retiring. So seeing that I don’t have an employer anymore, I have no need to join in and learn the new language that the HR sub-culture has invented just for this platform.
Treads
Whats the point?
YouTube
I have an old account I haven’t used for about ten years – so it’s gathering dust. I like it because it’s stored some old family videos which I can look at from time to time.