Why I Don't Blog Or Use Social Media
(written October 2025)
As much as people wax nostalgic for “the days before the Internet,” let me tell you—I was there, Gandalf. I was there three thousand years ago.
And I remember exactly how it felt to be a misfit in a New England town, long before connection could come through a screen. It was hell.
My mom was working poor, I lived in the projects and was “too ghetto” for the other gifted-and-talented kids, who came from upper-middle-class families so white they made mayonnaise look spicy. And I was way too nerdy for the kids in my neighborhood, who didn’t care about Tolkien or Star Trek or whatever hyperfixation I had that month. As I got older, socializing didn’t magically get easier. It just got lonelier.
Then, in 2006, at age 26, I signed up for LiveJournal. And for the first time, something clicked. LJ gave me a lifeline—a way to connect with people around the world through shared interests, fandoms, music, and more. I made friends from across the U.S., the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia. I even met my first husband through LJ and moved to California for him.
For a few years, LJ felt like magic. There was drama here and there—especially in the Pagan community (raise your hand if you remember Son of Art)—but I felt like I belonged. I thought I had real friends. And then came Strikethrough. And Boldthrough. And the Russian buyout. One by one, people vanished. The diaspora to Facebook began.
And I remember exactly how it felt to be a misfit in a New England town, long before connection could come through a screen. It was hell.
My mom was working poor, I lived in the projects and was “too ghetto” for the other gifted-and-talented kids, who came from upper-middle-class families so white they made mayonnaise look spicy. And I was way too nerdy for the kids in my neighborhood, who didn’t care about Tolkien or Star Trek or whatever hyperfixation I had that month. As I got older, socializing didn’t magically get easier. It just got lonelier.
Then, in 2006, at age 26, I signed up for LiveJournal. And for the first time, something clicked. LJ gave me a lifeline—a way to connect with people around the world through shared interests, fandoms, music, and more. I made friends from across the U.S., the UK, Europe, Canada, Australia. I even met my first husband through LJ and moved to California for him.
For a few years, LJ felt like magic. There was drama here and there—especially in the Pagan community (raise your hand if you remember Son of Art)—but I felt like I belonged. I thought I had real friends. And then came Strikethrough. And Boldthrough. And the Russian buyout. One by one, people vanished. The diaspora to Facebook began.
When the Magic Curled Up and Died
After LiveJournal, I bounced between platforms—Facebook from 2010 to 2016, Tumblr from 2013 to 2016, Twitter here and there between 2014 and 2016. I wish I could say I found the same magic, the same sense of community. But I didn’t.
Facebook got ridiculous. Not just in the passive-aggressive "share this if you care, if you don’t you’re heartless" kind of way, but in how it helped radicalize my now-ex-husband—who, like so many others, got swallowed by the right-wing algorithm spiral. Meanwhile, my liberal friends were treating virtue signals like activism. Changing your profile picture doesn’t change the world.
Tumblr wasn’t much better. I came out as a trans man in the fall of 2013—and Tumblr greeted me with the wonderful welcome gift of trans discourse. I was called both truscum and tucute. I got misgendered by a non-binary person in the middle of a dogpile, which should tell you everything about how much of that was ever about actual care for trans people. The drama clung to me like glitter you can’t wash off. Eventually, I nuked every social media account I had.
All my old LJ friends are gone. Of the people I knew on Tumblr, I still talk to exactly two—one of whom I live with now.
Honestly? I think Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter helped poison the cultural well. The polarization. The rage addiction. The total inability to talk like adults anymore. The way people confuse slogans, flags, or hashtags with systemic change.
It got worse. The purity culture on the left metastasized. In 2024, I watched a chunk of people sit out the election “because Palestine”—which, let’s be honest, often meant “because Kamala Harris is married to a Jew,” and they didn’t want to say the quiet part out loud. Guess who that helped? Not the people of Gaza.
I’m a fucking socialist. I supported Bernie over Hillary because Bill Clinton gutted welfare and dragged the Democrats rightward for a generation. But in 2015, I got called a misogynist for it—because apparently, having a uterus automatically qualifies someone to govern.
By 2015, I was already done with social media. And from what I’ve seen? It only got worse.
Facebook got ridiculous. Not just in the passive-aggressive "share this if you care, if you don’t you’re heartless" kind of way, but in how it helped radicalize my now-ex-husband—who, like so many others, got swallowed by the right-wing algorithm spiral. Meanwhile, my liberal friends were treating virtue signals like activism. Changing your profile picture doesn’t change the world.
Tumblr wasn’t much better. I came out as a trans man in the fall of 2013—and Tumblr greeted me with the wonderful welcome gift of trans discourse. I was called both truscum and tucute. I got misgendered by a non-binary person in the middle of a dogpile, which should tell you everything about how much of that was ever about actual care for trans people. The drama clung to me like glitter you can’t wash off. Eventually, I nuked every social media account I had.
All my old LJ friends are gone. Of the people I knew on Tumblr, I still talk to exactly two—one of whom I live with now.
Honestly? I think Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter helped poison the cultural well. The polarization. The rage addiction. The total inability to talk like adults anymore. The way people confuse slogans, flags, or hashtags with systemic change.
It got worse. The purity culture on the left metastasized. In 2024, I watched a chunk of people sit out the election “because Palestine”—which, let’s be honest, often meant “because Kamala Harris is married to a Jew,” and they didn’t want to say the quiet part out loud. Guess who that helped? Not the people of Gaza.
I’m a fucking socialist. I supported Bernie over Hillary because Bill Clinton gutted welfare and dragged the Democrats rightward for a generation. But in 2015, I got called a misogynist for it—because apparently, having a uterus automatically qualifies someone to govern.
By 2015, I was already done with social media. And from what I’ve seen? It only got worse.
The Dreamwidth That Turned Into A Nightmare
In 2019, I decided to give it one more try. Dreamwidth promised to be the second coming of LiveJournal—long-form blogging, thoughtful posts, meaningful connection across time zones and oceans. And in theory, people were hungry for that again. Something slower. Something deeper.
But what they actually brought with them was the political discourse culture of Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Same toxicity, different font.
Among other "greatest hits":
I got torn a new asshole for using LGBTQ+ instead of including a string of additional letters—because apparently forgetting half the acronym meant I was intentionally excluding people. Never mind the fact that I was 43 at the time (I’m almost 46 now in October 2025), I have ADHD, and I deal with constant brain fog from fibromyalgia. But compassion doesn’t trend well.
I wrote about my periods—how the cramps were debilitating, how they triggered dysphoria spirals that gutted me—and a trans woman came at me for it. She said she would “give anything to have them,” and I was supposed to take that lying down, or risk being called a transmisogynist. As if I would ever go up to her and say, “I’d give anything to have been called a sissy faggot growing up AMAB.” I wouldn’t. Because I understand what empathy is.
At one point, a non-binary she/they friend made a thoughtless joke about “men without penises.”
Um. Hello?
I’m a trans man. That joke wasn’t just unfunny—it was erasing and hurtful. So I quietly removed her from my blog. I didn’t start drama. I didn’t publicly shame her. I just enforced a boundary in my own space.
But somehow, I became the villain in that story. People rallied around her, because—surprise—“ew, men” is still a socially acceptable punchline in left-leaning spaces, even when the “man” in question is trans and visibly marginalized. My discomfort was treated like a sign of toxic masculinity, as if asking not to be the butt of that joke meant I was clinging to some fragile male ego.
It couldn’t possibly have been about basic respect. No. It had to be me fucking overreacting.
After the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Dreamwidth became openly hostile toward Jews. Suddenly, a wave of self-identified progressives were calling Hamas “freedom fighters,” even as reports emerged about the slaughter of unarmed civilians—including disabled people, the elderly, children—and the rape and mutilation of women. That’s not liberation. That’s terrorism. But if you dared say so, you were labeled a Zionist, and treated like you, personally, were a war criminal.
As a Jewish person, I was expected to publicly declare myself anti-Zionist to prove I was one of the “good ones.” I've already written about my complex stance elsewhere—to sum up, I identify as post-Zionist, meaning I believe Israel has the right to exist (just like other nations that have committed war crimes, including the U.S.), and that singling Israel out while ignoring similar atrocities by other states is antisemitism. I also believe in peace, a two-state solution, and reparations for the Nakba. But that wasn’t good enough. I was expected to go further—to declare that Israel should be dismantled entirely and handed over to Hamas, or it was fair game for me to be treated like a monster.
I watched people I once considered friends post dehumanizing shit about Jews, reducing us to some imagined hive mind responsible for everything they hated. It became clear that the only way to stay in their good graces was to renounce my people’s existence and history. I wasn’t going to do that.
I could go on and on about the toxic experiences I had on Dreamwidth, but at a certain point, it would double the length of this essay—and you get the picture. It was supposed to be a haven. Instead, it became just another space where I was expected to swallow hurt for the comfort of others, and where the people who claimed to care about community had no problem throwing someone like me under the bus.
But Dreamwidth wasn’t just political toxicity. It was the return of cringe culture and troll forums. My locked posts were leaked. My personal life was turned into lulz content. I was mocked for being on disability—with a pile of classist and ableist bile on top.
And then it got worse. I ended up on a well-known cringe forum. I won’t name it, but you probably know the kind. Antisemitism. Transphobia. Ableism. Mocking my neurodivergence. Mocking my existence.
And when I found out I’d basically been doxxed?
I shut my blog down.
But what they actually brought with them was the political discourse culture of Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Same toxicity, different font.
Among other "greatest hits":
I got torn a new asshole for using LGBTQ+ instead of including a string of additional letters—because apparently forgetting half the acronym meant I was intentionally excluding people. Never mind the fact that I was 43 at the time (I’m almost 46 now in October 2025), I have ADHD, and I deal with constant brain fog from fibromyalgia. But compassion doesn’t trend well.
I wrote about my periods—how the cramps were debilitating, how they triggered dysphoria spirals that gutted me—and a trans woman came at me for it. She said she would “give anything to have them,” and I was supposed to take that lying down, or risk being called a transmisogynist. As if I would ever go up to her and say, “I’d give anything to have been called a sissy faggot growing up AMAB.” I wouldn’t. Because I understand what empathy is.
At one point, a non-binary she/they friend made a thoughtless joke about “men without penises.”
Um. Hello?
I’m a trans man. That joke wasn’t just unfunny—it was erasing and hurtful. So I quietly removed her from my blog. I didn’t start drama. I didn’t publicly shame her. I just enforced a boundary in my own space.
But somehow, I became the villain in that story. People rallied around her, because—surprise—“ew, men” is still a socially acceptable punchline in left-leaning spaces, even when the “man” in question is trans and visibly marginalized. My discomfort was treated like a sign of toxic masculinity, as if asking not to be the butt of that joke meant I was clinging to some fragile male ego.
It couldn’t possibly have been about basic respect. No. It had to be me fucking overreacting.
After the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, Dreamwidth became openly hostile toward Jews. Suddenly, a wave of self-identified progressives were calling Hamas “freedom fighters,” even as reports emerged about the slaughter of unarmed civilians—including disabled people, the elderly, children—and the rape and mutilation of women. That’s not liberation. That’s terrorism. But if you dared say so, you were labeled a Zionist, and treated like you, personally, were a war criminal.
As a Jewish person, I was expected to publicly declare myself anti-Zionist to prove I was one of the “good ones.” I've already written about my complex stance elsewhere—to sum up, I identify as post-Zionist, meaning I believe Israel has the right to exist (just like other nations that have committed war crimes, including the U.S.), and that singling Israel out while ignoring similar atrocities by other states is antisemitism. I also believe in peace, a two-state solution, and reparations for the Nakba. But that wasn’t good enough. I was expected to go further—to declare that Israel should be dismantled entirely and handed over to Hamas, or it was fair game for me to be treated like a monster.
I watched people I once considered friends post dehumanizing shit about Jews, reducing us to some imagined hive mind responsible for everything they hated. It became clear that the only way to stay in their good graces was to renounce my people’s existence and history. I wasn’t going to do that.
I could go on and on about the toxic experiences I had on Dreamwidth, but at a certain point, it would double the length of this essay—and you get the picture. It was supposed to be a haven. Instead, it became just another space where I was expected to swallow hurt for the comfort of others, and where the people who claimed to care about community had no problem throwing someone like me under the bus.
But Dreamwidth wasn’t just political toxicity. It was the return of cringe culture and troll forums. My locked posts were leaked. My personal life was turned into lulz content. I was mocked for being on disability—with a pile of classist and ableist bile on top.
And then it got worse. I ended up on a well-known cringe forum. I won’t name it, but you probably know the kind. Antisemitism. Transphobia. Ableism. Mocking my neurodivergence. Mocking my existence.
And when I found out I’d basically been doxxed?
I shut my blog down.
When Silence Followed Me Out the Door
After I shut down my blog, the so-called "friends" I had on Dreamwidth mostly disappeared. I got a very few emails during the first month or so—some polite check-ins, a couple of "are you okay?"s—and then? Radio silence, apart from my roommate and best friend, and one person I met via Dreamwidth who I still keep in touch with via e-mail.
It's telling. And it hurts.
I gave people access to my life. I tried to build genuine connection. I literally put myself at risk by being visible, vulnerable, online. I was doxxed, for fuck’s sake. And then I started to fade from memory. Just another name they used to know.
Now, in the fall of 2025, I find myself needing to speak again. There are things happening in the world I can’t stay quiet about. Hard truths that need air. And part of that includes reckoning with the ways the LGBT+ “community” failed me—and how our internal rot is part of why MAGA controls the narrative about us. We’ve done a shit job fighting back, and pretending otherwise won’t fix it.
But I’m not going back to a format where people can comment.
For every “thank you, I relate to this, I feel seen and heard,” there are ten—or a hundred—bad actors who cannot resist the urge to take potshots at someone like me: an openly trans, queer, disabled Jewish person.
So I’ve chosen a different path. I’ll say what I need to say. Loudly, clearly, unflinchingly.
But I’m not opening the door for comments.
People will still gawk. They'll still screenshot and rip it apart somewhere else. I know that. But at least I won’t have to entertain their shitty opinions in my space, and waste my time and energy deleting nasty comments.
It's telling. And it hurts.
I gave people access to my life. I tried to build genuine connection. I literally put myself at risk by being visible, vulnerable, online. I was doxxed, for fuck’s sake. And then I started to fade from memory. Just another name they used to know.
Now, in the fall of 2025, I find myself needing to speak again. There are things happening in the world I can’t stay quiet about. Hard truths that need air. And part of that includes reckoning with the ways the LGBT+ “community” failed me—and how our internal rot is part of why MAGA controls the narrative about us. We’ve done a shit job fighting back, and pretending otherwise won’t fix it.
But I’m not going back to a format where people can comment.
For every “thank you, I relate to this, I feel seen and heard,” there are ten—or a hundred—bad actors who cannot resist the urge to take potshots at someone like me: an openly trans, queer, disabled Jewish person.
So I’ve chosen a different path. I’ll say what I need to say. Loudly, clearly, unflinchingly.
But I’m not opening the door for comments.
People will still gawk. They'll still screenshot and rip it apart somewhere else. I know that. But at least I won’t have to entertain their shitty opinions in my space, and waste my time and energy deleting nasty comments.
No, We're Not Going Back
I don’t think there’s any going back to “the good old days.” Trying to recreate the LiveJournal experience now feels like trying to conjure a ghost that doesn’t recognize the world it’s been summoned into. The landscape has changed. The culture has changed. We’ve changed.
What I believe in now isn’t a return, but a reimagining. A quiet renaissance. Personal websites—like the kind we had on Geocities and Angelfire—are starting to make a comeback, and I think that’s where the future is. Spaces we own. Spaces not shaped by algorithms or viral discourse or performative rage. Spaces where we can say what matters to us, fully and honestly, without being shouted over or shoved into someone else’s narrative.
No comments. No clout-chasing. Just… truth.
What I believe in now isn’t a return, but a reimagining. A quiet renaissance. Personal websites—like the kind we had on Geocities and Angelfire—are starting to make a comeback, and I think that’s where the future is. Spaces we own. Spaces not shaped by algorithms or viral discourse or performative rage. Spaces where we can say what matters to us, fully and honestly, without being shouted over or shoved into someone else’s narrative.
No comments. No clout-chasing. Just… truth.
