More ordinary people

On the refreshing-ness of being ordinary

I’m reading a lot of “ordinary people thoughts” lately. I’ve been on social media for nearly 20 years. I missed MySpace, but my students corralled me into FB in the early-ish days. That seemed at first to be mostly the replacement for running into people at the store. How have you been, how are your kids? I was connected to friends and extended family, people I actually knew.

For a short while I tried the version formerly known as Twitter. The vibe was too rapier-wit like. You have to say something really pithy and concise with a zing to it. And then it went downhill from there. I gave up rather quickly.

I got on IG because of work. I figured I’d play with it to learn how to use it. Had my personal account, my personal business account. Everything had to be instagramable. It just became too much work. My life is not that exotic. Guess I missed that generation.

Skipped Tiktok … for reasons.

Now I’m taking a stab at Substack. At the moment, it’s rather refreshing. I feel like I’m reading real comments from people with more ordinary lives. Maybe I’m following different people. Maybe people are just tired of performance mode. Maybe people are tired of the snark. Still creative, still thoughts of value. But more like a conversation on the front porch on a summer evening.