Taking a Gander at Another Social Media Site
I learned about it through DW and a friend of ours in the midst of rejecting almost everything American. But as we discussed it, I had questions:
- Would only Canadians be invited to join the platform?
- How many people would there be on this platform?
- Would anyone that I already follow on other sites join?
- Would I now be managing two social-media sites?
- Would Gander be worth my time?
As much as I liked the idea of a Canadian platform, I didn't know if I'd be interested in actually being on it, myself. I already have a Bluesky account that I like very much. I moved from Twitter to Mastodon, then to Threads, and finally landed on Bluesky.
It wasn't easy moving around. I had made so many friends and connections on Twitter that it was hard to leave. I told my peeps that I was moving to Mastodon and provided my account deets before jumping ship, hoping that I'd see them on the other side.
I saw a few but the vast majority of folks disappeared. I was sad but I did manage to make new connections, though it was hard starting all over again.
When Threads launched, I opened an account on the second day, and I was thrilled to find a lot of my Twitter friends over there. We re-connected and I gained more connections through them, and was very happy there.
For months, I juggled both Threads and Mastodon, but after a while I found it took too much of my time to manage both. Because more of my Twitter friends were on Threads, I encouraged some of the Mastodon folks to move over, and eventually I stopped using that platform.
I think I still have an account but once I made the decision to go with Threads, I never looked back.
Threads was great. It seemed much more positive than Twitter and I loved re-connecting with people. It reminded me of the early days on the bird site.
On the day I learned that Mark Zuckerberg gave the Tangerine Turd a million dollars for his inauguration, I closed my Facebook account. Same with Instagram and WhatsApp. On Threads, I told everyone that I'd be leaving, and why.
I had heard of Bluesky from when I was looking to leave Twitter, so I signed up. I don't know why I didn't simply go back to Mastodon but I wanted to try something new.
I let folks on Threads know about my Bluesky account and hoped I would see them there, and a couple of days later, I closed my Threads account.
I decided that Bluesky would be my final social-media platform. If things went tits-up, I'd simply leave these sorts of social-media sites.
Throughout all of this time, I also had LinkedIn, which I had created about 15 years ago. I didn't use it very often but ever since I lost my job, I've used it almost daily.
(I don't really like it but I use it to announce blog posts.)
So Gander looked like another option but I feel that I'd be in the same boat as when I juggled both Mastodon and Threads. I'm not sure that I want to do that.
But because Gander is Canadian, and I want to support Canadian goods and services, I'm giving it a try. On Friday, I created my account and sent my first post. I followed DW and our friend who got me to send an invitation request.
On Bluesky, I asked if anyone else had joined, and one person (as of writing this post) gave me his details for Gander. Poking around, I found a couple of folks who I've been following on various platforms since Twitter, so I've connected with them, too.
Since joining, I've gained a few more followers but I've only started following only a couple. One of the first issues I've found with the app is that it's difficult to upload images and I haven't had much success. That's a deal-breaker for me.
It also doesn't have a desktop version yet but they've said one is coming soon. That's also something that I really like to have because I spend more time on a computer than I do on my phone.
I don't see me leaving Bluesky anytime soon but I'm back to juggling two social-media platforms. For how long, we'll see.
How about you? Are you on Gander? If so, look me up (@brownknowser.gander.social).
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