Intellectual Property Is Bullshit â Upcycle This Website
like most of us, i'm pruning back my presence on the web so that i can better manage how and where my data flows and lives. with a new corporation opting to sell us out, charging us to sell our data, or harvesting it to train some artificial intelligence model that practically no one has interest in and is all but certain to be wildly destructive to the planet, the need to pare back our presence and be more intentional and deliberate when it comes to how we engage.
Kolektiva is an instance of the open-source platform called Mastodon that looks, feels, and works much the same Twitter did, except, unlike Twitter and Bluesky, you have access to the greater "federated universe" (a.k.a. The Fediverse) of platforms. what does that mean? imagine you could like a friend's Instagram post from your Reddit account one minute then forward a meme to your partner's Twitter account⌠that's how the Fediverse works. this one is for people who generally adhere to far-left, antifascist, anti-capitalist, anarchist, and adjacent principles.
exposur.es is project with the aim of creating a safe haven for artistsâqueer and trans people, sex workers, sex educators, and anyone else who has been the victim of censorshipâto collaborate with each other and freely share their work in whatever form it takes. in its previous incarnation, it existed as an instance of PixelFed, or what some where calling an ethical dupe of Instagram. on exposur.es, artists are liberated from exploitation and censorship. at the moment, the project is taking new forms and might reappear less as a social media replacement and more as physical spaces to create, share, and learn together.
Matrix, while not technically part of the Fediverse, it is a federated platform too since you can host your own instance (just a fancy term for server that runs specific software) and use it to communicate with people on other instances or people on your instance, like your friends. we can think about federation like emailâyour friend who has Tuta, your partner who has Proton can talk to each other and to you at your EarthLink email (okay, i kid, but you get the picture now).
@frank.161 is my username, if you'd prefer to text me. The link above should even open the app too!
bump into me around Brooklyn! i'm regularly cruising on my bike, strolling with my camera, or sipping coffee in a park, so let's get together!
you might also find me working on the local citywide mesh network or at a distro with some mutual aid outfits around town. maybe we'll end up shoulder to shoulder working on one of these community efforts together.
i'll admit that i'm not as active as i was in the so-called Before Times, but you might catch me lurking the streets in search of live Jazz, a burlesque show, the occasional art installation, or, perhaps, at various sex-positive or body-positive, nudist-adjacent locales and events around the city.
my interest in some of the latter spaces, in particular, is waning because, what i once experienced as an underground, word-of-mouth scene built on trust and mutual respect has, like everything else, been captured by capitalismâmonetary and socialâand thus morphed into a clout-chasing social media content fodder factory of primarily boring cishet people or cis gay men. keep your ableist, queerphobic Fire Island parties, i'll take a mellow nude beach with real community or a weekend on a lake upstate with partners and friends every time i'm given the choice. here's hoping that we see more COVID-conscious clubs that don't require you to buy an NFT for membership sprout up soon.