I Ditched Modern Social Media Sites for Indie Sites (and so should you!)

written: 01/22/2026, published: 02/18/2026

*DISCLAIMER: I cuss a lot. Don’t read if you don’t like bad words.

I am going to be putting the BIGGEST asterisk ever though next to modern social media sites because I still do use Tumblr, Pinterest, and Discord, but that's because there's no indie clones of those sites as far as I know. BUUUTTT anyways. I’ve been using solely indie social medias lately opposed to like, Twitter, deviantART, Instagram, Facebook, etc. etc. MAINLY because of corporatization, integration of generative AI, and lack of customization. I've been reducing how I've been using social media by resorting to ones that are only really accessible through my computer. One of my New Year's goals is to play on my puter more, so this is arguably a fun and cute start to it.

I hate how much social media essentially RELIES on you consistently scrolling and scrolling to consistently refill that unattainable dopamine rush that you get from seeing silly cat video, le epic meme, to oh that's just racism the video. But it's okay, it's a funny silly video guys so it's fine! (I’m obviously being sarcastic.) Resorting to essentially being more analog has been really good for my attention span, because tell me why I had a better attention span as an untreated AU-ADHD kid than I do as an untreated AU-ADHD adult, like I used to read all the time man. But now I can't even play my favorite video games without getting bored within 15 minutes. It genuinely sucks. Like. It really does. I do like to think that I'm not the only one that feels this way, but at the same time it does hurt seeing people post about “check out my modded 3ds collection” and it looks as if they just spend so much time modding and decorating their DS’ and they probably play on it all the time. They don’t. Everything now is not for the act of doing it is now for the act of looking. It's arguably been that way for years, but because of, dare I say, the le pandemic, people were stuck at home! They need things to do! What else can you do besides stare at a wall? Scroll. Just scroll. Constantly. Short form content blew UP during this era. and it's going to continue being the status quo of modern corporatized social medias because that is what gets people clicking. Or tapping. I don’t know. Continuously scroll until you scroll upon an ad, oh that looks interesting I’ll go ahead and buy it. and then you get more and more ads. TikTok is nothing but ads now, I have to CONSTANTLY scroll to actually get my funnies because it's NOTHING but ads. Same with Pinterest too that apps filled to the brim with ads too it pisses me off FUCK. Wouldn’t this bullshit be considered an FCC violation? I don’t know! I’m just an artist! I’m too busy drawing furry tits to research that.

Does anyone else remember how Instagram used to be before Facebook integrated the ever loving shit out of to the point it literally generates Instagram accounts for you if you don’t have one connected? So serious, it does do that, my dad who’s never used Instagram, never downloaded or ANYTHING, has an account because it generated one for him, with the shittily cropped pfp and everything. It’s so fucking dumb. When Instagram was bought by Facebook, I'm not calling it Meta, the integration was there but it was purely optional if you know what I mean, like it was just a toggle. But NOW. Every Facebook account MUST have an Instagram account. Facebook and Instagram posts and reels MUST have an integrated comment section. That doesn’t even work actually because it literally says “view Instagram comments on Instagram,” like okay how can you be that lazy? Instagram is one of the major contenders in this trend of corporatization that I absolutely despise. I don't count Facebook because it was corporate from the start, it's been asking for your full name, location, date of birth, name of ur first grade teacher, name of ur favorite childhood pet, moms maiden name, etc. etc. since like the inception of Facebook. It was originally meant to be like a Hot or Not for college campuses for crying out loud. IDK when it came out all I know is that it’s very old.

But Instagram was unique in its own way because it was purely a photography based social media app, the whole point was to post pictures. There weren't even DMs or stories, just posting. If you wanted to talk to people you add them on Snapchat. Don’t get me started on Snapchat. But I remember Instagram first updated to have stories which arguably was what made snapchat obsolete. You could now DM people and send pictures AND post stories. You only need snapchat now to be a pervert. 2018 was when Instagram was at its peak, it was when it started being a corporate slop but it was MY corporate slop. It had THE perfect UI. the home button on the very left…. then the search, and OH POSTING BUTTON IN THE VERY MIDDLE UH HUH YEAH YOU KNOW. THE SPOT ITS SUPPOSED TO BE IN, then the activities button, and then the profile button. THE perfect mobile social media UI. But then everything changed when the shopping tab attacked.

That's when they started incorporating being able to shop within the app, shop through Instagram so that way you don't have to open a Safari tab or Amazon. Is there anyone who actually bought anything through Instagram? I know I sure haven’t. But now because of the like three people that actually did, Instagram has been slowly over the years HEAVILY prioritizing ads so that way you can shop. Instagram's a shopping app now, it’s not a social media app anymore. You only go on it to look at ads. Because NOW there's ads in between stories and in between reels. I don’t know when that was integrated. I stopped using Instagram religiously in like 2022. And now it's likely a consistent cycle of downloading it, looking at the funny and the pretty, and then oh that’s racist propaganda. And then I delete the app, because the ADS and the like ABSOLUTELY NO FILTER??? Is what drives me away every single time. 30+ slide post of an Amazon ad and then the next post is a fucking agartha edit. remember when the max was fucking 10 slides for a post, isn’t it still 10?? Why does amazon need +30??? Oh and because Facebook integrated hardcore with Instagram you gotta have the full on Nazi propaganda now. Because of how much these social medias want your money they just GOTTA shove all these ads down your throat to the point you throw it all up because of acid reflux. Yes, I took my carafate today. That is a reminder for myself. It's just very suffocating and now only exists if you want to drown yourself in a never ending hellscape of ads and Fuentes poster boys. Oh boy and you know what makes this process of turning an app into corporate slop? AI SLOP!!! YIPPPEEEE!!!!

To make the process of being super fucking corporate hellscape as much possible, just make a robot generate you ad of a seven finger stock family with broken ankles and a homunculus of a dog to advertise your realty business! All these local ads you get are 9 times outta 10 AI generated. Majority of everything, especially if your account is brand new? AI generated. And it doesn’t help that not only is there no moderation, but the filter that marks things as AI is literally a poster dependent toggle. Someone posting an AI video of Joe Biden saying “I hate minorities” or something is obviously not going to toggle it as AI because they want people to think it's real! The lack of moderation on these AI posts makes spreading propaganda REALLY FUCKING EASY. It’ll go from weird ass AI cat stories with that one Billie Eilish song as a cat version to the fucking Kirkinator. It’s also used for ads too of course, there’s quite literally SOOO many videos out there about an AI generated grandma or something begging for you to buy these cow themed slippers to save her nonexistent pet shelter. Or something along the lines of that. But because so many people are very susceptible to falling for these AI generated ads, these like shadow companies? Are going to obviously continue making them! I can’t lie and say I’ve never fallen for AI generated content, because I have! Especially on TikTok and Pinterest, it’s so bad there. There could be funny cat videos of students who snuck their cats into class and they’re trying to keep their cat quiet during roll call, but nope that’s AI generated. You could find a cute 2000’s themed bedroom compilation, only to go on the page and find that every single image they’ve posted are AI generated. I have to literally dig, dig, and dig to just find content that either isn’t AI generated or are literally just recap clips from shows with AI generated voiceovers explaining what’s going on, because apparently people can’t be bothered to just watch the damn show to figure out what’s going on!

It’s obviously so very frustrating that every time you open an app now, you have to essentially pick and choose and dodge content that can be suspected of being AI generated. Because obviously the toggles that these companies provide don’t work, as they’re user dependent, and these “creators,” are obviously not going to mark their content as AI, because they want gullible people to click on it! Or tap. I don’t know. All I know is that because of how much AI generated content has advanced and is being constantly shoved in our faces, more and more people are going to be falling for these literal scams, and these companies don’t do shit about it.

Besides all the integration of advertisements, AI generated slop, and bonus points if both at the same time. But I genuinely miss how customizable social medias used to be. I know it’s such a first world problem to have, but the customization is what made social media more fun back then. I was obviously too young for Myspace, so my only real exposure to actual customizable social medias were deviantART and Tumblr. deviantART being the one that hurts the most, as it was not only one of the first social medias I’ve ever used, but being able to customize your profile was one of the biggest features for the site. Though through a paywall, that’s why you’d do point commissions to be able to buy yourself premium membership so you can customize your page all cute. Same thing with Tumblr, you could even use themes and customize them to your liking. Remember when Justin Bieber bought a $50 Tumblr theme for his blog? That was pretty funny. But anyways, social media used to be more fun back when it was purely curated towards you. Being able to customize your pages, no algorithm so every post that you’d get through your feed is purely to your liking, and the expected option to have a persona or be completely anonymous. The internet as a whole was just treated as an alternate space that you can go to after having a long day in the real world, you know? A space that you could go to essentially be yourself. I like drawing cute characters and uploading them to a site I customized to my own liking with pinks, purples, stars, peace signs, etc. etc. and being able to look at other people’s cute characters and looking at their customized pages.

I feel like my general consensus here is that I obviously believe that the corporatization, AI generated content, and especially AI generated content being used to push the corporatization even further, has ruined this space that was supposed to be a creative outlet for people that just wanted a space to be able to express themselves freely. I don’t like using the internet to buy things, or find jobs, or reading the news, or whatEVERRRR. I wanted this space purely to express myself and so did many other fellow creatives. Normies truly ruin everything guys. But because of how people are so willy nilly with giving private corporations their information to sell to advertisers to target ads towards you so you can buy their shitty fucking cow slippers, it has to be my problem when all I wanted was to just. Make art. Share my interests and hobbies. And have a cute page to show off all of that. But no. Facebook MUST know what elementary school I went to or what my first phone number was or what my childhood pets name was and EVERYTHING. I HATE IT. I want to be selective and personable by my own choice on what I choose to share, but that’s just not good enough. I’ve opted for indie web to escape this never ending hellscape of being consistently probed for information out of me when I don’t want to. I like being able to make things cute and looking at other cute things, that is what I curated my space to be. And now I’m reclaiming ownership of said space and making it my own. No more numbers. No more ads. No more AI. No more being consistently probed for information. It is only OCs, art, hobbies, and whatever all from here.

Yours truly, Lilac