smash that subscribe button

Note to self: before you make a post on Facebook about how you’re leaving Facebook on account of Zuckerberg is a piece of shit, and tell everyone who reads it that they can subscribe to your blog … ensure that WordPress didn’t change the theme on you when you weren’t looking, hiding the formerly obvious subscribe button.

Here’s what I wrote there:

As an OG blogger who did everything in html, I resisted Facebook for years. I didn’t like the idea of being inside someone else’s garden, where I didn’t own or control my writing, photos, and so on.

But I ended up here because it’s where the people were, and I stayed here to the detriment of my own writing and my own website (that I worked so hard to build on my own in the Before Times).

Over the years, I’ve been put into Facebook jail for absolute bullshit, usually because of bad faith reports from dickheads, but also because a machine did a comically bad parsing of something I said. (Hey, die in a fire, machine!) As a consequence, I have ended up self-censoring, or even writing and creating to serve whatever the fucking algorithm wants, instead of what I want. It’s always bothered me, but at like a 1 on a 10 point scale. I’ve lived with it, and I’ve accepted the compromise.

And it’s been so frustrating to contort myself into all sorts of non-euclidean shapes, while literally every single time I report someone for hate speech, impersonation, scamming, a different kind of hate speech, terrorist threats, even more hate speech, the machine waits for weeks before it tells me that all of that hate speech was just peachy with Facebook and the gigantic piece of dogshit who owns it.

I’ve had one foot out the door on this website for a couple months, and now that Meta will allow and encourage hate speech against marginalized and vulnerable people (obviously so that right wing fuckfaces can do the thing, officially, that they’ve been doing all along) I am leaving for good.

There’s no reason for me to be here. Whether it’s because I’m boring or the algorithm is squashing me or some combination of both, engagement is way, way down over the last half of last year. And there is just way too much harassment, noise, bots, scammers, and overt fucking Nazism all over the place. If I’m going to reach a smaller audience, anyway, I’m going to reach it via my own blog where I actually care to keep that dogshit in the trash where it belongs.

I’ll let my blog crosspost here for a couple of weeks, and then I’m just going to let this account go fallow.

I sincerely hope that, if you have enjoyed following me here, that you’ll come over to my blog. There’s a simple form there, so you can get my posts by email, probably more reliably than you ever saw things here.

I also have Bluesky, though I’m going to use it minimally — the fire hose of social media is extremely bad for my (and your) mental health — and even then, mostly to let folks know when something I made is out in the world.

The people who work for me are going to be unhappy about this. I have a major project coming out in March, and it’s not the best idea to walk away from an account with a few hundred thousand followers … but when I walked away from three million followers on Twitter when fuckface von nepobaby turned it into a fascist propaganda tool, absolutely nothing changed for me, from a business perspective.

Put another way, my experience over the last 25 years has shown me that there is a core of people out there, you are likely among them if you’re still reading this (hi, Aunt Dorothy!), who care enough to go where I am. I’m counting on that pattern holding as I leave what has become yet another tool for fascists, authoritarians, bigots, Nazis, and other disgusting and deplorable people to use in their efforts to hurt people I love.

I’ll keep my Instagram up a little longer, unless or until this Zuckerberg approved policy of hate and toxic masculinity (why is it always the weakest little men who are so toxic, he asked, rhetorically) metastasizes there, as well.

Please come with me, back to my blog, where it all began.

On another note, I’m sure that the block editor is great when you understand it, but I am entirely lost when I try to use it. Nothing makes sense or follows a logical flow (that’s obvious to me, anyway), and it makes me feel stupid.

So I appreciate all of you who came here from wherever you came here from, and I am doubly grateful to all of you who have actually looked for that subscribe option. Because if it was anything like my experience, it was a massive pain in the ass.

Of course, at this moment, I believe you get annoying SUBSCRIBE stuff all over the place, including something you had to click to even see this (I think? Again, the documentation is confusing to my dumb ass) … but at least you can see it. And the layout is going to change a whole lot over the next couple of hours, while I figure this thing out.

If I can wrap my head around this, someone reading this late today or tomorrow will hopefully have no idea what this is all about, and if you are that person, I encourage you to celebrate by subscribing to my blog, so you never miss a post.

Thanks for your patience and support, y’all.

Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET

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195 thoughts on “smash that subscribe button”

  2. Don’t be silly, Wil! Of course I will subscribe to your blog!!! Having actually met you a few times on the JoCo Cruise, along with your lovely wife Anne, I know that you are “a righteous dude” in Ferris Bueller terms and I never miss a chance to keep up with you! 😍

  3. If you never feel stupid you’re not exploring new things enough. I didn’t see the subscribe button issue because I’m already subscribed and don’t pay much attention to FB except to keep up with family and friends. So I’ll still be here reading.

  4. Saw the fascistbook post and zipped over here to subscribe. Bravo for doing what you feel is the right thing to do. I hope you and your family and friends are safe from the terrible fires. Our 🇨🇦 water bombers are doing their best to help out alongside the brave LA, Mexican, and other US first responders. Be safe!

  5. Already subscribed, so I’m good to go!

    I’ve never been a WordPress fan- precisely because there are too many hands in the pot and things like theme changes or updates that break plugins happen far too frequently. I ended up writing my own CMS (which is really not a big thing) and would highly recommend it, just so your site does only the things you want and only when you want them to. =)

    I run a little tiny business and losing my Facebook / IG support would be fatal, I think, so I’m going to keep mine, mostly for showing off my ice cream, and continue doing what I’ve currently been doing- glossing over about 95% of what comes across the feed.

  6. Thank you Wil; I’ve followed your posts over the years and now I’ve subscribed to your site. I haven’t made a decision yet regarding Those Two Social Media Sites, even though I am limiting my time on both of them. I’ll be here, supporting you and your work.

  10. purpleb6a13eb02f? I need to do something about that … but, I’ve done the most important thing. Subscribed to the blog. I used to read the blog in my free time, but it seems my free time has become event driven. At least to some extent. I like the return to the blog, and while I did click the “Notify me of new posts”, I feel like the needed intent to read the blog is healthier than doing it in response to some external event, or a coincidence of doom scrolling and an algorithm. While I’d assume your beliefs don’t require my support, you have it regardless.

    P.S., I also got a big “SUBSCRIBE” full page banner … excellent!!!

  11. The subscribe option popped right up for me when I came to the page. Glad to be here, love reading what you have to say, unless it’s about the Kings 😉 (GOoooooOOOoo Oilers!)

  12. RSS went dark before this post and I got worried. I am still sad that the big sites killed off RSS which allowed people to follow whatever they wanted from any platform. Thanks for having the bravery for honesty and transparency, and fighting the tide of accepting the unacceptable.

    PS: RSS is fixed now so all good.

  13. It feels like I’ve been following you almost my whole life. Thank you for being well worth following.

  14. Back when TFG won his 1st presidential election, I deactivated my account because it was just too stressful reading about all the bullshit that was happening. But I still needed an active account with a real name to manage a page for a non-profit I volunteered for. So I created a secondary account but lied about my age, location, etc. (had just enough info to look like a real person and not a bot). I changed the privacy settings so people couldn’t find or tag me and refused any attempts to “friend” me.

    During the pandemic, the non-profit decided to close its Facebook page. I could have completely deleted my accounts, but instead, I found a bunch of private groups dedicated to card making and crafting. The groups have moderators and rules for what’s allowed, the most important being, to treat others with kindness and not engage in negativity. So, I stay. I don’t post to my profile, only in the private groups where I can have fun with other crafty friends. We share photos of our projects, answer questions on techniques or tools, and generally provide emotional support to one another. I’m not planning on leaving it at this point. But I don’t think I’ll ever go back to using it the way I originally did.

  16. Happy to follow you here! I am also considering a change to my social media usage based on recent changes. Just have to figure out how to keep in touch with friends and family the most efficiently! Maybe I’ll start a blog (again)…

  17. I loved the early internet where the blogs and forums you visited was your community, so I am happy to have another blog to visit. Meanwhile I’m just sitting over here in my corner watching various social media platforms slowly implode and going “Hahaha…. Yes!” like a Kelly sicko.

  18. It will be cool to see you back here, Wil. No need for me to “smash that button” because I still have you in my feed reader.

    And I hear you about it all. I’ve had a blog/website of my own for ages, but haven’t posted any notable updates there for a while. Not that I’ve been posting stuff anywhere else… my creative output has been strained for a while. I’m sure you get it.

    (In related news, I finally had time available in my schedule to get involved in community theatre again, and did my first production in over 20 years… MAN did that feel good. I knew I had been missing it, but didn’t realize how much until I was sitting in rehearsals thinking, “Oh yeah, I love this.”)

  19. Happy to be here, free of the endless whargarble that is Zuc-Land. It’s so pretty here, and it smells better already.

  20. I wonder if a fully updated profile on Gravatar will help me get through the Akismet filter faster? If we never get to see that comment, know this … it was artfully and skillfully crafted. With care, and a great deal of … ummm … stuff. Word stuff. Looking forward to getting back to reading the blog.

          2. Found the original post. Must have been a cache issue. Also, can what is necessary be unreasonable? Not an argument … just a musing. But, likely not amusing.

  21. Hello, Good Sir! Long time follower, here! Also with one foot and half my ass out the FB door…

    If I could press a magic button and get all of my loved ones in a Discord server, I would. Social Media is a dumpster fire. I miss the Old Internet. I miss AIM, LiveJournal (I know it technically still exists, but…) and crappy Geocities websites.

    However, until I can invent an internet Time Machine… I have you, and a few others, who I suspect may get HEAVILY censored in the coming 4 years, coming to my email.

  23. By the way, speaking of pieces of shit and WordPress, the CEO of the company behind wordpress has been being a remarkable piece of shit over the past few months, and is taking remarkable steps to destroy everything: https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/11/matt-mullenweg-deactivates-wordpress-accounts-of-contributors-planning-a-fork/

    That URL isn’t quite accurate, the people deactivated weren’t planning a fork. Plus included in those deactivated/banned were people that haven’t had anything to do with WordPress for 5+ years, just because they’d complained about the leadership structure back then.

    The “good news” side of it all is that WordPress is open source software, and just about everything he has done over the past several months is driving the community towards an actual fork, which you’d just be able to transition to whenever it happens.

    Alternatively, the legal mess he keeps landing the company in sure must be pissing off those with a financial stake in the company, maybe he’ll push things too far and it’ll die that way instead.

  25. I’ve been subscribed here for a few years, which I’m glad for as my email is more reliable than FB algorithm, however, I do feel the need to “like” your post – will that need ever go away?

  27. I smashed the HELL out of that “subscribe” button. You’re a good human and we love you.

  28. Wil – I, like you, kept (barely) making it work on FB until this final insult. I actually ought to thank Zuck the Putz for forcing me to do what I should have done years ago. I’m in the process of figuring out how to make Bluesky work for me, and in a short time I’ll be gone from FB entirely.
    I’d love it if you would post quick reminders on Bluesky whenever you add to your blog. My email inbox gets so cluttered with spam that I don’t always see the mail that I actually want.
    Keep fighting the good fight.

  29. Hi Wil! So happy to be here.
    Especially seeing the banner at the top.
    Thank you.
    ~Christine

  30. Thank you for making sure that we can find and follow you! Your presence on the Meta networks is always a a bright light, and I’m glad not to lose that.

  32. Welcome home, Wil. It’s nice to have you back. I’ve never had Facebook, and have been quietly checking this blog a few times a week for about Eleventy years now. Can’t wait to see what you do with the place. 🙂

  34. Welcome back, Wil! (I know you never left your website, but welcome back anyway!) Welcome back from the insanity that social media has become. Welcome back to an Internet that belongs to the people who use it, not to a tiny collection of insane, evil billionaires.

    I really hope that this becomes a trend, that people rediscover the joy of making things that they control. Leave social media to the bots, to the AI image and text generators, to the spammers, and to the scammers. Let them all fester there together. They deserve each other.

    Meanwhile, the rest of us can enjoy ourselves in places full of happy, caring, real people.

  35. There is still RSS, which is how I’ve been following you on this site for years. Maybe it will also get a renaissance with all that is happening.

  36. I’ve been experiencing a slow waning of FB. I still have many friends/connections there, but didn’t see a way off. I thought about — what was it like before? I emailed people, we had some email lists. We were on message boards. We read and had blogs. I’ve been picking these things back up — as I’ve been slowly leaving FB. It’s been. . . interesting. I also have a lot more time for being outside, reading, playing games… IDK. Feels good.

    Anyway, I’d subbed to your blog a long time ago; unsubbed via email reminders years ago because it was FB accessible, and here I am subbing again so I have things that I value and not a lot of other mess. 🙂

  37. Your audience and fans will follow you regardless of where you go, and I would much rather the real unedited version. 🫶🏻

  39. Ooh look, unlike Tumblr I can actually comment here! I’ve loved this blog since you started it, Wil. You remain one of my top-ever bloggers, and I’m glad you’ll be continuing.

  41. I cant get subscribed, i screwed up the email addy and it wont let me fix it… please help

  42. I am already subscribed to you here.

    I have never had a Facebook account.

    I am not planning ever to have a Bluesky account, because Jack Dorsey had already been allowing/encouraging Twitter to become increasingly more toxic before he sold it to the person he knew would make it exponentially worse just before he said “Hey look! I created a new place that’s not as toxic as the old place of which I just deliberately maximized the toxicity!”

    I am enjoying Spoutible, which is like an alternate timeline version of early Twitter, where it evolves based on what users actually want (we already have an edit button and no Nazis!), and it does not allow troll bot and propaganda accounts.

    I have shared this link on Spoutible so people who may have lost the connection to you in the sea of online toxicity long ago can reconnect with you! OK, I only have 983 followers, but they’re all real humans!

  43. You must have fixed it because it looked good to me and the link the kind soul left in the FB comment on your post led me straight here!

  47. As someone who get excited and made something (almost 10 years of a board game podcast) after you talked about that more than 10 years ago, I’m happy to come across to here if it means staying in touch and hearing your thoughts regularly.
    Stay well and keep fighting for all we all believe in, and keep talking with us.

  48. I’m here, from there, and subscribed. No trouble at all. Looking forward your continued writings, sir. ☮️

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