Follow me @moonmehta, or maybe don’t

Look, I hate social networks. I’m not active on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and the ilk. And that’s despite the fact that I’m an independent space writer who needs to promote my work because no one else will do it for me. But trust me, it all works fine without social media.

Even if we look at the more ethical socials like Mastodon and Bluesky, I find them to be so damn noisy. Besides, microblogging of any sort is a terribly contextually deprived way to create and consume things. And so I’ve embraced a no-social-media life for the most part. My longform blogs on space exploration and everything else is where I share the best of my public thoughts, which you can follow via email or RSS.

But humans insist on using social media for some reason. And so I exist minimally on the open, interoperable social network called the Fediverse. If you have an account on Mastodon, Micro.blog, or any such Fediverse-compatible social network, I hereby invite your human self to follow, interact, and hangout with me @moonmehta.

I get that the Fediverse may seem too novel or daunting to use and figure out at first. And so if you don’t want to exist there, that’s fine. It’s not a high priority for me anyway. But at the same time, I can’t justify sacrificing my time and efforts on other social networks which degrade my thinking, mental health, and sanity.

But fear not, I have a magical solution that works for the both of us regardless of what happens to the world of social media. Nothing beats email for deep digital connections and conversations.