drainoil said:I must be in a very small minority as I’ve never had any kind of social media account. It’s probably not something to be proud but it is what it is. For the reasons already stated I may eventually have to cave in and get one to stay up with my hobbies.
Ummm, glad you're here. Dork status and all, kind of makes me think you do have at least one social media account.
I think the idea is that we're the same, only different.
Oh, and what's "the patio?"
I'm completely sick of Facebook. Ironically, in the last few days one of the "time-hop" things popped up and I said the same thing like 6 years ago and was trying to convert people to Google Plus. That didn't last long. My new happy place is Instagram. I'm a visual person so the stategic "following" of cars, boobs, guns, boobs, and cars keeps me happy. I can message people on there too. I'm basically stuck with Facebook at this point because like the OP mentioned, most (if not all) autocross and events news is only available there.
The only traditional social media I'm part of is instagram, and that is fairly recent.
It was the build threads that pulled me in here, and for months I would only check in on the few builds I'd found (through google usually looking for info or advice on my own projects) that I had bookmarked. Probably six months before I actually joined.
The general respect and courtesy offered here is pretty awesome. Folks are always free with info and usually (unusual for the internet) know what they're talking about. The mods are great, the builds are great, the hotlinks are great. The lack/ban of politics/religion/asshat-nes is a huge bonus. And it should be noted that I am religious and have a definite political ideaology. Also I'm rather shiny and happy. Glad to be here.
In reply to drainoil :
Don't cave! Be strong... you are not alone. The book of faces cannot, in all fairness, be blamed as the cause of the downfall of society, but it is, at best, one of the symptoms!
FB marketplace does seem to to be the best place swap meet right now, but its not worth the "price of admission'. I've never had an account, and never see the need. No MySpace, Instagram, or any of the "share what I had for a snack - with the universe"
I've considered making a new account so I could use Marketplace only, but I'm weak. I love and hate Facebook. It's a hot mess, but about the only way I could keep up with my family.
Even though we have our patio rules, which I very much love, there are still many members here that want to be very political. You can tell they have to use a lot of restraint not to go on a political rant.
Most recently I have been looking for a first gen CRV on FB marketplace. Using my highly skilled Facebook creepery, I can see who is a soccer mom selling her old family CRV (yes please) and who is an amateur car flipper or tote-the-note lot (no thanks). I couldn't do that anywhere else. So, it does have an advantage over Craigslist.
I often purge my Facebook. I will unfollow family members if they annoy me.
What is annoying is joining Facebook groups that are private. You have to answer the screening questions to get in, then when you do, you find out it's pure E36 M3e group full of spam and idiots. Then you have to leave the group to get rid of the static on your feed.
Instagram I really like. I follow about 500 or so people and have about 800 or so people who follow me. It allows me to see the car culture all around the world. I do like Japanese homeland car culture. And, Instagram has the best cat pictures. I will come out of the closet and admit that I am a cat guy and always have been.
Floating Doc said:Oh, and what's "the patio?"
If I remember the start of all that correctly, years ago someone asked the management what happened to a particularly prolific but "rule ignoring" member. We were collectively informed that he had been "buried under the patio". "Buried under the patio" kind of became a euphemism for the fact that there are rules around here and, although administered patiently and sparingly, they are administered.
I'm mostly on social media for news stations and car stuff............although I hate it for car stuff. All the different social media platforms aren't nearly as good as forums are when it comes to build threads, a useable/searchable repository of information, etc.
Mr_Asa said:I was thinking about my post above while in the middle of a crappy meeting. I kind of wonder if there's some link between the appreciation of small Vs large online presences and Dunbar's Number
Perhaps with Dunbar's Number you slowly accrue people of like-mind. Topics you would talk about face to face.
The internet allows much more than 150 into your life and posting from the keyboard one can take liberties you might not face to face.
bobzilla said:private groups with likeminded people are still fun.
This sounds kinda rapey. Just saying.
I've been off FB for over a year, after nearly 8 years on it, and I actually deleted my account. Best social media decision I've ever made.
My wife is on it, and uses it like heroin. Bright side is she keeps me up to date on Rallycross/WDCR stuff.
I have avoided FB and only use a handful of places like GRM, LS1TECH, LINKEDIN, and Reddit for my logged in web time. Is it bad that I use my wife's FB account for marketplace activities? it is literally the only thing I am missing by not being part of it.
"You exercise your right to freedom and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdrawals to their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum.
They stay inside their little ponds leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right." -The GW AI, Metal Gear Solid 2
Each ensuing year has shown me that Facebook should have been destroyed. I should have known better when I began making a profile and I got creeped out by it "finding" all pictures of me through facial recognition. I don't know hardly anything about it's creators- but oh god do they know things about me, even if I didn't want it to.
GIRTHQUAKE said:"You exercise your right to freedom and this is the result. All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt. The untested truths spun by different interests to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdrawals to their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum.
They stay inside their little ponds leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right." -The GW AI, Metal Gear Solid 2
Each ensuing year has shown me that Facebook should have been destroyed. I should have known better when I began making a profile and I got creeped out by it "finding" all pictures of me through facial recognition. I don't know hardly anything about it's creators- but oh god do they know things about me, even if I didn't want it to.
Do people still use RSS feeds? I never did but understand what they are.
If I can find a good way to still see all the news I want, local/national/international happenings/politics, and also see a good amount of car stuff..........I'd love to delete my Facebook account.
*Without having to go each individual site.
FB is such a useful framework for group coordination that staying on is still more useful than annoying for me. But only barely. Our local MTB people use it almost exclusively for scheduling group rides and such. I've unfriended and unfollowed a lot of political posters, and the closed groups seem to be better. Mostly I'm trying to condition myself to just scroll past whatever political, shouty stuff. If I see eagles, flags, Jeff epstein, any polical figure, etc - I just flick the scroll. Politics and it's discussion is a hobby for some, but not me.
I have some internal conflict with social media. I'm not a huge fan, but it's useful in some ways. I also co-host a live multi-platform show for work that also spits out YouTube and blog content and such. Some days I feel like social media is a plague on the earth but I have to go into our studio and be excited on camera while begging for likes. Those days my whiskey intake increases in the evening.
bobzilla said:private groups with likeminded people are still fun.
I think they call it the lifestyle 
My thoughts on FB.
I don't really like the fact that it's responsible (it's not really, the people are) for the loss of a few really good forums, but FB is just another tool that I can use for a few different purposes. If I get a friend request from a genuine friend I will accept it. If I get one from a fringe friend I wil accept it on a trial basis. If they're annoying, political, or something else that bugs me I unfollow.
I keep it light. I don't usually comment, and over time it's become reasonably enjoyable. But it's still not as good as a proper forum. My friends tell me Instagram is where it's at, but I don't really have any desire for more social media exposure
I solved all those problems with FB by being myself.
Which means I posted a bunch of toxic and highly offensive stuff that makes me giggle and my mom yell at me. Oddly I've only been postblocked twice, once they reversed because apparently a dude smoking a cigar is porn? and the other because I said mean things about satanists.
I use Facebook to E36 M3post a lot but other then 2-3 people my Facebook seems to just be car groups and funny stuff. Some political but most of my friends share my views and the few that don't I just move past. I like this forum but most of us seem to have jobs so the posting here doesn't move fast enough too entertain me the way Facebook does when I'm at a doctors office or my wife is watching something terrible on tv
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
The quote uses a lot of words to basicly never actualy say anything. Either that or I'm just not smart enough to understand big words!
I do know that by avoiding FB I'm not really protecting my privacy, but sticking my head in the sand at least makes me feel better about it!
2 years ago, even if ya knew my given name, you couldnt find me online unless i gave you a few hints. Now you can find stuff the fed's take a week during a background check to find!
03Panther said:2 years ago, even if ya knew my given name, you couldnt find me online unless i gave you a few hints.
Fortunately for me, there are two other guys who have the exact same name who are much more important. You have to dig a while in your search results before I turn up. 
03Panther said:In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
The quote uses a lot of words to basicly never actualy say anything. Either that or I'm just not smart enough to understand big words!
I do know that by avoiding FB I'm not really protecting my privacy, but sticking my head in the sand at least makes me feel better about it!
2 years ago, even if ya knew my given name, you couldnt find me online unless i gave you a few hints. Now you can find stuff the fed's take a week during a background check to find!
Nah, the normal public has been able to find that stuff online for nearly two decades. I remember in college taking the class, "Computer Assisted Reporting."
This would have been 04 or 05? Things were way less connected and there was way less information available. But we still had no problem finding SSN, addresses, etc.
I would love to take a class like that now and see how easy it is to find stuff, especially now with most states having court records online, etc.
Grizz said:Oddly I've only been postblocked twice, once they reversed because apparently a dude smoking a cigar is porn?
Somebody needs to explain to them that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Me, I've generally dealt with Facebook by using it for work related things (we have a product support Facebook group). Very occasionally I will put up things on my personal page, but it's not something I use very often. Somehow Facebook's demographic data has picked up all sorts of wrong information on me, even though I haven't deliberately tried to fake it out.
I've developed a belief that the coming of every modern "age" brought with it a new pollutant. For the industrial revolution, it was the coal dusted cesspits that were industrialized cities, the inhuman treatment of the menial factory workers, and the like.
The transportation age brought with it smog, CO2 emissions, and whatnot.
These ages start out extremely filthy, but get cleaned up as we learn how to deal with those pollutants (and generally just find cleaner ways of doing whatever it is we do in those ages).
Facebook, to me, is the coal-soot belching, vomit inducing, information factory of yesteryear. Misinformation, to me, is the pollutant of the information age.
It'll get cleaned up, the same way as all the other pollutants have, but it had to get worse before we were going to do anything to make it better.
That being said, if facebook is the "coal-soot belching, vomit inducing, information factory of yesteryear" then this place (and you guys) are a village garden picnic on the first warm day of summer. This is seriously the only place I can go for social media and feel like I can breathe again.
(Part of that last sentence is my own fault. Since I view misinformation as a pollutant, I feel like I need to deal with it. So I'm one of those volume argument people who just doesnt stop until you unfollow/unfriend me. And I'm ok with that.)
kazoospec said:TL:DR - Just happy to be here.
Same here. I would not have accomplished nearly as many automotive things if it were not for the advice and support I've gotten here on the GRM forum. I said that on GRM's Instagram recently.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7o5NdoA34_/?igshid=ks77uian3z7e
Thanks, folks!
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