All I’ve got to say is social media is fucking wild! People won’t know you. They won’t bother to look through your blog or any other posts you’ve made. They run into one post of yours, dislike it, and create an entire motherfucking fictional story about you where you are the worst example of everything you’re politically opposed to. They spread that story and get everyone who follows them involved in the parasocial delusion.
The insane thing is that they’re interacting with whoever they’ve created a fiction about as a representation and symbol of that character. Basically, they’re using the person as a prop and not even actually engaging with the person. Instead of engaging with a human being, they engage with a a caricature that represents everything they politically oppose. People spend hours and hours doomscrolling doing this. It’s fucking nuts!
I truly am starting to think that how much people hate Bluesky on the fediverse is a weird version of European nationalism. Don’t get me wrong—as a Black person living in America, I can tell you there are tons of reasons to hate America. However, it seems like Mastodon—which is largely culturally European—has reflexively reacted to Bluesky as an American tech corporation. It has become a stand-in for an American thing they hate. I’ve been off and on the fediverse since 2022. The sheer amount of genuine hatred aimed at Americans on American tech platforms has never been this bad.
Bluesky is seen as a U.S.-based tech company. Fediverse culture is often perceived as more European and anti-corporate. Since Bluesky becomes a stand-in for “American tech imperialism,” it becomes a way to criticize America. I’m starting to believe the intense hostility toward Bluesky users is a symptom of reactionary politics.
The problem with reactionary politics is that people tend to feel justified in it, so they don’t examine it. Authoritarianism and fascism are not pluralistic. It’s the idea that this culture is good and that culture is bad. When you start prioritizing one culture over another for nationalistic concerns, you are reacting to nationalism by being nationalistic.
No, I am not saying tolerate Nazis. I am saying that treating everyone in a country as a Nazi is nationalistic. If you live in America, you have to use American things, especially with this tariff nonsense. It’s not something you can boycott. If you work in America, the corporation way up the chain probably uses Microsoft products. I live in an apartment complex owned by an American corporation. It just feels like what’s powering—honestly bordering on—the hateful culture on this platform is nationalism. The hatred on here seems to be part of a larger social shift. A lot of Europeans on here don’t want to be technologically associated with America. That’s fine. However, it seems like the value judgments are manifesting as nasty, covert authoritarianism and anti-Blackness. It’s killing this space, people.
America is on fire because of runaway reactionary politics and populism. Reactionary accelerationism is why America is on fire. If Europeans react to American nationalism with nationalistic imperatives, you’re literally becoming that which you believe is immoral.
Collectively blaming or treating “Americans” or American consumers as fascist or inherently bad mirrors the logic of ethnonationalism. It is really weird, because the label is not attached to all Americans; rather, it seems attached to American consumers. As an American, I do not care; rather, I am simply pointing out that being ethnonationalists as a reaction to ethnonationalism is inherently a corrupt and losing position. It’s also anti-democratic. It’s just insane to me how easily digital spaces slip into authoritarianism disguised as moderation. Every surveillance state uses the excuse of keeping people safe and protecting them from bad actors as a Trojan horse.
Again, assuming American tech users or entities are complicit in fascism by default utilizes the same logic as ethnonationalism. As an American, I don’t care. I do care about the rest of the world slipping into nationalism, though. So, please don’t.
No love is lost between me and this country. I get the hate for America, I really do, which is why it would be a shame to be just like America.
It’s wild. To be clear, as a Black person living in America in the year 2026, I am used to people creating fictional representations of me as a means to discriminate against me. My feelings aren’t hurt. It is just insane to me that it is happening on the fediverse.
Let’s be clear, though: Reactionary politics was the death of Twitter. Don’t be like Twitter.
