It's been over a year since we got send into lock down for the first time. It's been a crazy year and my country only managed to open partially - before getting into another lock down.
A long year and I'm craving some actual physical games with people.
One year ago I setup a Discord server in order to talk with people and try a bit to combat the isolation some of us feel. Wrote this post back then 'Staying Social Apart'.
The Discord server have grown over the year and have become a very dear place to me. Wonderful people have joined it and there's a really creative crowd in there. As a community it's grown into a place full of support.
Wanted to take a bit of time to tell about it.
Mini blogs
For all the members who've wanted it, we've setup mini blogs. Text channels for individual members where they get moderator rights and can post and upload their projects. It's there own little playground.
And there's some awesome stuff being uploaded here. The best thing about Discord is how easy it is to upload stuff with your phone and the pace. The pace is must less than Facebook. It feels more like the old PHPBB forums in some ways, where you would have your own thread.
Talks
I've made good new friends in here. There's almost always some hobby people ready for a bit of hobby voice chat if wanted. Many a good hobby and game discussion going on. Often I find myself just listening in to other peoples wise words. It's great background noise when painting.
The Discord even made of produce a podcast. Amazing how every single author we've asked to join us have just said 'Yes' and been game. It's a nice format, with Discord members throwing questions during the talk, sharing links and photos.
All the flash
There's just some fun little things you can do with a Discord, kind off gamification like. We've got a friendly bot overlord, XP granted levels and roles, motivational quotes and so on. It's good fun without being spammy.
And spam is the worst. One of the reasons I like Discord is the notifications I can manage myself. I've muted individual channels, and nobody can make those @Everyone tags. So despite there being a lot of activity it's not overwhelming.
SoMe overwhelmed - stepping back.
Speaking of overwhelming. ... I got crushed under all the SoMe stuff. It came sneaking over the year. I tried a lot of stuff during lockdown. Solo gaming, streaming, youtubing, podcast and so on. And the bloggerverse grew. ... so many drafts done, photos on twitter, instagram, facebook - tons of different groups.
And in the end it really didn't give me what I was looking for. Something was missing. It lead to something like a hobby burnout.
At one point I need the social aspect - it's the next game that motivates me. Building terrain and painting models for the next planned game with a friend. Solo gaming couldn't do that for me, it wasn't what I was after. It didn't scratch the itch.
And the SoMe got too much as well. I love this blog, the hobby diary. It was great fun to have the free stuff and the advanced copies. But it also (without me noticing it) made the hobby a job - it cam with (unspoken and self made) obligations. "I really should be writing a review", "remember to also check into Twitter". Something like maximizing reach.
F*** that stuff. In the end I took a long break. Ended twitter and instagram. Stopped the 'post every 4 days' cycle and all these systems I had ended up with. Nevermind the being 'someone' or what one might call being an influencer.
This is turning into a bit of a rant. But stepping back from all the SoMe was really good. Social media growth is not important. Getting free books is cool and all - but I can afford them myself.
Writing big battle reports or reviews might be neat. But it takes a lot of time.
So now I'm just doing what I want, post more 'only photos, few words' post and so on.
So what did you do?
Facebook: I was in so many groups. Games I wanted to play, games where my terrain would fit, large groups that was cross hobby 'miniature painters', 'terrain builders' and such. Too much. I've never shared my blogs in wrong groups - always within the frames of the groups. Still I was posting in 7 groups with all blogs.
I got out of all facebook groups, except one group for each game I actually play. No all around groups, no double groups. Like specific Hardwired group - I'm now only in Stalker7. No need for multible post apoc groups, now only in TNT. Done this all over.
It's cleaned my feed and most porjects now only gets shared in one of two groups.
Twitter and Instagram: Just stopped going there. Twitter is really not good for hobby work sharing. The tweet, retweet, comment thing is a mess to follow. And a maximum of 4 photos. I still post my blogs there. But don't need to post all photos and don't care about adding a million hashtags.
Same for Instagram. It's about putting on a million hashtags. ... yeah, it's just not for me.
Anyways.
Take care out there!
