I know, if you found me it probably wasn't on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or X. Impossible, right?
I was an early user on most social platforms with my actual name and used them for everything, as a lot of people did. Then, almost 1/3 of the global population did and a lot of creepy things started happening. You may have already had it happen to you so you can relate, it happened to someone you know, or anyway, you've definitely heard of it happening.
Enter trolls, hackers, stalkers, doxxing, and my life got pretty scary. All of my social media accounts were hacked and I was locked out of email and my phone number was compromised as well. So, I had to change my number, and restart from scratch. Imagine that. Suddenly you lose access to your digital life, just like that, cut off.
I did try for many years to regain access to my facebook and twitter accounts. I'm guessing you know how that went too. After years of trying I gave up as no humans check requests to regain access to your own named accounts with very easy identification verifications options.
You know how I finally got back into my facebook account? I had to get a job at Meta! Seriously, and it still took about four weeks to get someone internally to unlock my account in order to onboard me.
I joked that I guess I have to work for Twitter now in order to get my @stephaniehayden handle back, and I almost did. It was a fateful, cold, winter day in November 2023 when I learned I would not be joining on my contracted start date with Twitter because, well, you know the story. I'm glad I avoided that iceberg strike by about 24 hours, but still, it was a crazy rollercoaster.
All the while people were fleeing from IG, Twitter was being Xd out, and a literal, impending, cage fight was brewing between Musk & Zuckerberg. This sealed the deal for me in using either platform for reliable communications, community building, and reconnecting with my people.
I'm not saying I won't ever use a social media platform again, I'm just not sold on where I should go now, or where everyone else is going - you know?
What do you all think? For now, I'm going to collect all my content here on my site, www.stephaniehayden.com. Sign up for my newsletter and we can stay in touch here :)
P.S. Updates
I dove back in - here there are!
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