Sooo…. it’s been awhile since I engaged with this blog and I think it’s time for an update, hold on to your panties, it’s gonna be a long one.
Fediverse/Threads Federation
Firstly, let’s talk about what’s been going on in Fedi itself and my experiences with it, so far.
As we all expected, Threads started to federate recently and has seemingly split the Fediverse in half. Those who don’t care or want federation and those who absolutely don’t want anything to do with Meta or Threads.
There’s many sides to this, but the biggest one comes down to a basic fundamental misunderstanding of how Fedi works and exactly what data is federated and what can and can’t be done with said data.
Here’s some facts. Your IP address is only recorded by sites or instances you visit directly. Therefore your IP address is logged ONLY by the instance you’re using. The same can be said for your email address.
The ONLY information that is federated, is whatever you publicly share on your profile or in your posts if your discoverability is set to “public”.
Next, some people think (including me at first) that Threads will be able to push ads through Fedi somehow. This is just not how ActivityPub works. ActivityPub specifically works by follow relationships. Therefore if you don’t follow accounts that post ads, you won’t get ads. There’s no way for Threads to attach ads to normal posts and push them to Fedi. It just doesn’t work that way.
Third, and in my opinion, the most legit argument, is that Threads just does NOT moderate their users. This leads to completely vile shit being posted and spread like wildfire. This is something we just have to wait and see about.
My biggest concern, being a single-user instance, is my instances ability to handle the sheer amount of posts that will be federated from Threads once full federation is in place. I’m not sure my small server will be able to handle it. This is another “wait and see”. I may have to defederate for this reason alone.
Other than these couple of reasons, I see no reason to NOT federate until they give me a reason to block them. If and when they give me a reason, then I’ll block them.
My Fedi Experience.
The last few months for me on Fedi has had some ups and downs.
I’m at close to 600 followers now on my main account and WOW. I just never expected to have so many great people appreciate me, my content, and what I have to say. So if you follow me there or here at this blog, THANK YOU.
Though, as I gain a bigger following, with it comes more trolls and assholes. The behavior is a little asinine to me. I tag all of my AI Art posts, yet at least once a week, someone is commenting saying something like “I DONT LIKE AI ART WAHHHHH”. Okay? Then fucking filter it! Or, be like a normal fucking human and scroll the fuck past it!
I’ve also had the unfortunate experience of noticing when I’ve been blocked by people I’ve had nothing but good interactions with. This leads me to endlessly wonder what I did wrong and if there was ever something I could have done to stop it from happening. I miss those people and it really sucks because I only have 1 friend. Literally, 1 friend that I interact, do things with, and see in person on a semi-regular basis. Therefore when someone online that I consider an acquaintance, severs that bond with no explanation, it hurts quite bad.
Other than these few downsides, Fedi has been mostly good to me. I own my own content and data, and nobody can tell me who I can or can’t interact with as if I was on another instance.
Gaming
As someone who can’t do a lot of things normally, due to my hydrocephalus and ADHD, gaming has always been my passion, along with my way of forgetting my numerous issues in life. Therefore, when my 1 close friend started to get into World of Warcraft WoTLK Classic, I jumped at the opportunity. We started back in June or August and things have been a bit tumultuous.
Once we hit max level, we almost immediately joined a guild called “Friends” and started to try to learn raiding. This was not fun. Their raid leaders were not very good at explaining things to new people, leading to multiple failed raids. Then, the reason we left, is because those same raid leaders would vilify us new people for failing the raid publicly in discord. Therefore me, my friend, and his girlfriend left in the middle of the night. Being on a smaller realm, they VOWED to have us blacklisted from “EVERY GUILD ON THE SERVER!!!!!!”🙄 Needless to say, that didn’t happen.
Almost immediately after leaving Friends (they were not friends), we joined another (really nice and friendly, albeit very nooby) guild named “Valiant”.
These people were all very nice and friendly. They helped each other out and played with each other. There was just one problem, they weren’t playing the higher tier content that my friend and I were already playing at this point. So, we spent about 2 months in that guild, then seemingly out of nowhere, my friend leaves because he was ready to raid. But, me being me, had made friends there and enjoyed being with them so I didn’t want to leave right away. A few weeks went by though, and no progress was made, so I was convinced to leave and join my friends guild he joined called “Execution”. This was seemingly the beginning of the end for WoW. At least for my friend, and the way I am nowadays, I don’t really have enjoyment out of doing things alone. I guess that’s depression, but that’s how it is.
It was fine at first. I joined them on a couple raids a week and was trying to learn as I play, as that’s the best way for me to learn. After a few weeks, we made it to the 4th or 5th boss, which is pretty good in my opinion. Then, they started the vilifying of noobs. The same issue that was going on in the first guild. At the same time, they split the “teams” and since I was a bit behind my friend now that I wasn’t raiding with them as much as he was, he was put into a different “experienced” group.
At the same time all of this is happening, my dad has knee replacement surgery and needs 24 hour care. All of these things combined, along with the holidays, had our daily gaming fun sessions grinded to a halt. Therefore, I haven’t played in a few weeks mostly due to my friend being “busy” working to catch up on holiday expenses, and my motivation dropping to 0%. Although, I have a feeling that he just didn’t wanna play anymore.
So I’ve barely been out of bed since Mid-December and needed something to, at least, occupy my mind. Which lead me to my new/returning interest which I talk about next.
Professional Wrestling
When I was about 7 or 8, I vividly remember channel surfing on a Monday night before coming across a group of degenerates making an “X” symbol across their crotch and telling people to “suck it!”. Being an impressionable kid, seeing the sheer violence and seemingly adult themes, I was HOOKED.
Ever since that day in late 1999, Pro Wrestling and I have had an “on again, off again” relationship. Since 2005 though, my fascination and fandom seemingly revolved around a very select few individuals. One being the Undertaker. Every time I heard about something big that the Undertaker was doing, I was watching.
Another, is….CM Punk. Ever since his “Summer of Punk” in Ring of Honor back in 2005, I have been hooked by his charisma and athleticism in the ring. Apparently, I’m far from the only one. Back in 2013, he left WWE very publicly and tumultuously. Since then, he hadn’t done much. Some failed UFC matches and a failed “FOX” show called WWE Backstage. That is, until he made his massive return to the squared circle in 2021 with “All Elite Wrestling”, a fairly new promotion started by a group of “Elite” pro wrestlers and the billionaire son of the Jacksonville Jaguars owner in Tony Khan.
With me being used to the more “PG” style of wrestling now vs the bloodbaths of the ECW days, AEW never really was my thing. Therefore, I admittedly didn’t watch any of Punk’s AEW run. But, in August of 2023, there was apparently an altercation between Punk and Jack Perry(actor Luke Perry’s son), Punk was very publicly fired from the company. After a few months off, there was lots of speculation, but at Survivor Series in November, Punk made his much anticipated return to WWE. And I’m hooked again….
For these past few weeks, I’ve literally done nothing but sit on Fedi while binge watching everything Professional Wrestling. From behind the scenes interviews to old shows and matches to the current shows on TV today.
The issue is, Professional Wrestling hasn’t caught up to the current technology. Cable is almost dead with every bit of entertainment seemingly making their own streaming platforms to counteract this.
Unfortunately for me, I don’t have cable, so I’m left scrambling to many different sources to keep up with the current wrestling product.
Sure, there’s the WWE Network which hosts every PPV for a small monthly fee, but the weekly shows don’t get posted till 30 days after the air date due to contracts with the TV networks.
AEW on the other hand, doesn’t even have something like this AND the PPV pricing is still $50 per PPV like it was in the mid 2000s. So I’m stuck with piracy. I don’t have a issue paying for what is available to pay for. The problem is that it’s either not available or the price is not worth it for a disabled person on Social Security income.
Even TNA has TNA+ which hosts their monthly PPVs. On top of that, it gets the weekly shows 10 days after airing, which is still behind, but not THAT bad.
The only company that’s seemingly doing it right (which is ironic because it’s now owned by AEW owner Tony Khan), is Ring of Honor. Honor Club hosts everything, but maybe that’s because ROH isn’t big enough for a TV contract. Even so, you’d think Tony Khan would just take that technology and strategy to apply to AEW, but it hasn’t happened so far for some reason.
PS. I know it’s fake, so does everyone else. That’s not life changing news to most people that watch it. Maybe it’s life changing news that every movie and TV show is fake too? You DO know that Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t die at the end of the Titanic, neither did any of his cast mates, right? RIGHT?!?
Conclusion
That’s pretty much what I’ve been up to for the past few months and I’ll be honest, the past few holiday weeks have been rough. My family is not the “let’s all hug, hang around, and give people gifts” type, so I’ve mostly been in my bed binge watching wrestling content and making AI art that people “don’t like”. Thankfully there are those that do like my content and it’s the reason I’m still on Fedi today. Thanks for reading this, I hope you’re doing well and having better holidays than me. Don’t feel pity though, I am enjoying my alone time as much as I can.
PS. Previously, comment replies wouldn’t be federated and I don’t know if that’s changed. Therefore if you leave a comment and are expecting a reply, but don’t get it in a few days, check on the actual blog comments.👍
#Mastodon #Fediverse #ActivityPub #Threads #ProWrestling #ProfessionalWrestling #WWE #AEW #Gaming #PCgaming #WoW #ADHD #Depression #Anxiety #Blog #WordPress
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