Social Media

2024 is finally over! This is probably one of those statements that blog readers might be whispering in relief, rolling their eyes for good measure. But take it from me that nobody is as pleased about this as I am. I did what I said I would do, I've caught up months and months, and frankly who cares if blogging is on the way out. Not here it isn't, or at least not yet. I do sometimes wonder if it isn't time to switch medium but then I think about how inept I am at most things. Writing I can just about manage. Videos with either me in them or behind the camera? No thanks. Podcasts? I don't think the world needs that, and anyway I don't have the discipline for a regular slot, which is how all podcasts seem to operate. It's not that I lack the confidence, it just doesn't fit with how I work. It's not my style.

Neither are the short format things like Instagram, SnapChat or Tiktok, or whatever else now exists that I am unaware of. I am insufficiently glossy and my pout is awful. I've only ever had one social media account that I used in earnest and that was Twitter. Then it became X. Shortly thereafter it became a cesspool and I stopped using it. For a while I had no social media accounts at all, and so by the time I created a BlueSky account in February 2024 I'd rather forgotten what it was all about. In a year I've managed just over 21 posts, the last over three months ago at the point of the US Presidential election. I just.....I just can't be bothered. Yes, that sums it up. I cannot be bothered and I don't miss it. And I would imagine that it does not miss me either. The world does not need to know what I think about the state of it, and I'd almost certainly use it for that and not about what I'd seen in Wanstead (as I see nothing in Wanstead). And then people would moan that I'm only supposed to talk about birds and to keep politics out of it, as they sometimes amusingly do here. I find it incredible that so many birders would prefer to bury their heads in the sand rather than discuss the very real problems we all face, but perhaps birding is their escape, a way to forget what real life is actually like. I can sort of get on board with that on one level but deep down I think it's pathetic. Regardless, it is simpler for everyone that I don't bother, and in all honesty I am not finding keeping my side of this bargain very taxing at all. Social media can get stuffed, for starters it is responsible for so many things I intensely dislike. I have many thoughts about many of these things of course, but I can easily keep them to myself and my immediate circle. If you have visited here for any length of time then you will likely know where I sit. Maybe this need to broadcast nuggets of my immediate thoughts will return. Equally it is perhaps safer in today's polarised world of recrimination and hate that it doesn't. Who's the pathetic one now?

But the longer format as is seen here will remain, and people who have the mental capacity to cope with more than a single sentence at a time may find something to interest them. A riposte, such that I can manage it, to the age of vacuity and soundbites. I find brevity difficult, always have, it is for the most part hugely unfulfilling - I've never pandered to the masses, why start now? There will be gaps in service of course, but just because I can't produce a paragraph doesn't mean I'll be satisfied with 160 characters or a meme. I'd prefer to suffer in silence. 

I don't know why I am writing all this by the way, I suppose I am in one sense staying true to the ethos enshrined here since 2009 which is that whatever comes out comes out. What I had intended to say was that with 2024 out of the way I could crack on with Morocco. If you go back to the top and re-read the first four sentences you will see where I was headed. Then I appear to have become distracted. Coming back to the point, I had been feverishly blogging all of the trips prior to my January 2025 trip to Morocco so that as a reward I could flood the internet with images of Wheatears. This I am now ready to do, viz.

Get ready.