I recently unfollowed someone on Bluesky whose posts I used to enjoy because more and more whenever I saw their posts it was a rant, bad news, rage-bait in vibes. I realized that I wasn’t enjoying their posts anymore and on top of that whenever I did respond with something that could be done or things that were good, they’d shoot me down with more bad news. It felt sad especially within the hobby. I wanted to share that I think we should focus on what we love instead to better the hobbies we enjoy and ourselves.
Disclaimer: this isn’t a “positivity mindset” post encouraging you to ignore the bad to manifest only good things. I don’t believe in that. Nor is this a post to ignore what ills there are in the world such as the political landscape. I’m talking about hobbies here. However, even in politics, if you are posting on and on and on about how bad things are without posts about hope or calls to action to do anything about the bad stuff…are you really helping anyone? I’ll just leave it at that.
Its Easy to See the Bad
I’ve been in many communities, organizations, committees, and teams in my life. I’ve done everything from start meetups to create events to help head conventions. Problems will arise including major issues like abuse in a community, predators, communities losing enough people to almost or completely disappear due to lack of funds or interest, and more. It can be really easy to focus on the problems because they demand attention even if you aren’t the person who can do anything about that problem.
Its good to acknowledge problems too. Without acknowledgement, how can they be fixed? However, the biggest part of that is the focus on fixing the issue rather than reveling in it like a pig in mud. Sadly, there are a lot of people that realize that being in the midst of a problem gets them attention. Online, attention can mean literal money. So they go on and on and on – sometimes making the problem bigger (or at least seam bigger) to get more attention. They milk it for as long as they can because attention = numbers = clicks = a paycheck.
Focus on Help and Solutions
The thing is, communities do not survive or thrive on focusing on the problem for attention. They exist, survive, and thrive when the problems are acknowledged and those who can do something focus on solutions and then carry out plans for those solutions.
Even if you cannot be part of the solution, you can bolster those who focus on aid and solving problems. Give them your attention, numbers, and clicks. Rather than sharing the post that is listing all the problems and how things are worse than before and are only getting worse from here, share the post that talks about things anyone can do to bolster the community today to have a better one in the future. By doing so, you can be part of the solution to the rage filled internet.
Focus on Joy and Love
We come to hobbies – whether its crafting, baking, reading, or movie genre watching – because we enjoy it. Something about it brings use comfort and amusement. Don’t let that comfort get lost in rage-bait and rants. Instead, lets celebrate the good in it. Instead of giving our energy to people who hate on what we love or people in the hobby who are enjoying the attention of all the problems with no solutions, lets uplift the good stuff when and where we can.