Right now, everyone wants to become YouTube famous, or Instagram famous, or now even TikTok famous. But, if you use any of these platforms, you become a digital indentured servant. It is called digital sharecropping, which is, you build your land and platform on someone else’s land, thinking it is yours, but in actuality, it is not. You have no control. And even if you become the richest person on YouTube, you’re still a slave to YouTube-Google. Even if you’re the number one most followed person on Instagram, you’re still a slave to Facebook.

TikTok seems to be the new up-and-coming competitor, yet the reason why we should be very suspicious and wory of TikTok is that ultimately it belongs to a Chinese corporation.

Soft censorship

The thing that is interesting about social media is that they do not overtly sensor you, rather, they only low-key and soft sensor you. For example, if you say something which is controversial or anti-the terms and conditions of the given platform, they will either not show it in the newsfeeds of your followers, reduce the ranking, or maybe get rid of it all together. A lot of people in Internet rally that certain corporations are tyrant centers, but they also fail to realize that in fact, in America corporations are not bound by free-speech. Conceptually and legally in America, we are given the right to free speech. But, if you use Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube or any other platform, these are not government platforms.

Even a tangentially related notion is that regarding Tesla, and Tesla vehicles. I’m not 100% sure about the terms and conditions of Tesla vehicles, but technically you do not really 100% own your car. I believe legally, you are not allowed to hack or modify the firmware, and also even if you purchased the auto pilot self driving feature, it is under the terms and conditions of Tesla.

You control the platform

If you pay for your own website hosting, and if you use an open source platform like wordpress.org, you own the platform, and you own yourself. Just like Jay Z said, until you own yourself you can’t be free, until you own yourself you can’t be me.

Why become an owner, and why own things?

When it comes to publishing your artwork or thoughts, this is what I have learned: if you do it on any social media platform, it will ultimately ruin and harm you. How? It seems that essentially all social media platforms are predicated on metrics. Likes, comments, views, chairs, etc. Therefore, if you start to become trained to think that the worthiness of your artwork or thoughts is predicated on these metrics. And also, slowly but surely overtime, you start to only create and share things which will placate to a popular audience, or to your followers.

And we all know that popular is bad. If popularity was the most important thing in the world, then McDonald’s the best “restaurant”, Starbucks would serve the best coffee, Netflix would have the best cinema, Facebook would be the best publishing platform, and a Toyota Corolla would be the best car. Also, that smoking is good, drinking Coca-Cola is good, and sugar is good.

Why blogging is great

I still think that blog is very underrated. Because if you have a thought, opinion, photo or video, audio, or artwork, they can be represented in a digital way, the blog is the ultimate publishing and sharing platform. To publish something is essentially free and instantaneous, can be edited at any time, and you could combine any amount of media on your blog or in a given blog post.

Also, hyperlinking. The ability to link within your own website, and to link to outside websites, this is essentially the foundation of the Internet.