For people using smart TVs, consider hooking up an old laptop or desktop to your TV. You can use a wireless mouse/keyboard (or other input peripheral) and you’ve got a living room setup that allows you to use ad-blockers and your own browser and video player (I recommend PotPlayer), among other advantages.

MS Teams comes with a pretty good Whiteboard app as well.

They go to space heaven?

I find it funny and sad when headlines are phrased like that when in reality they should read “Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn American Democracy and Install Fascist Regime.”

I hear you, it is a nightmare. I bought my first home earlier this year and ended up moving an hour outside of the city. Paid less than half what I would have paid, don’t have to worry about crime, and everyone is generally more chilled out.

I’m sorry to hear that. I have really bad self-esteem issues around my body and I have spent my life avoiding the public most of the time for that reason, it’s really limited my options in life. I promise that there are other people like me out there that would support you if we saw you, not criticize you. You deserve to be you wherever you feel like being.

Thank you so much and sorry it took me so long to reply. It’s nice to hear there are other people out there like me that are going through the same things. Hugs back!

I just read up on all of this drama and it’s quite dumb, IMO. I don’t know why I did this to myself, but I figured I’d write a summary here. I apologize if this comes off as overly negative, I tried to avoid it as much as a could but it was kinda like watching an episode of Real Housewives of the Fediverse.

There’s this trans woman named Eris who seems like a jerk, they use some channer speak and are aggressive. There’s this other cis white dude named Puf who goes on and on about Eris being anti-black but can only provide screenshots to Eris being a bit of a dick, and seems to have digitally stalked Eris in order to try to find any possible way to discredit them. They’ve both circled the wagons with their respective followers, with one camp calling the other anti-trans and the other camp calling the first anti-black. In reality, Eris is a jerk and Puf is psychotic and the fediverse would probably be better without either of them, but is pretty obvious that neither of them are racist or transphobic.

I have no idea why firefish.social would be suspended because one of their admins boosted a random, unrelated post that Eris made. It’s like a big self-defeating, incestuous left-wing witch hunt.

Moved to a small town earlier this year, tried to make friends, met some cool people, last month I found out one of the group was super openly transphobic, so I stopped hanging out with them. Tried to reconnect with some cousins, last week I found out one was a transphobe, homophobe, and racist, cut her off. Started to get close with a different one, found out yesterday that he was transphobic, cut him off. I’m not trans, but I don’t want to be around idiots that think trans people are groomers. Feeling pretty goddamn isolated and terrible about myself. Wishing I could just stay inside and never see people for the rest of my life.

You might be right for some of them, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them enjoying a little power and importance, especially if it’s in relation to a community that they are connected with. But I agree with you that it might be a good idea to at least consider quitting, since it’s likely that Reddit is just going to get worse as it becomes increasingly controlled by dead-eyed shareholders.