Every day more fuckity fuck fucks get added onto the existing stream of fuckity fucks. I’m finding it all a bit overfuckingwhelming. I needed a new fuck to give, and I’m quite sure, at least, three of you could use it as well. Plus, I recall promising extras. Added bonus of how to improve your media algorithms.
Extra Fucks to Give!!
#51 Fuckity Fuck Fuck
Turns out—living through constant, inhuman, global, evil bullshit is super draining! Who could have guessed?
World officials, officials because using a word like leaders isn’t a fit descriptor for most of the fucknuts running things. World officials act as if history hasn’t provided us ample evidence of what happens when humans decide to inverse the Three Wise Monkeys, and we end up with:
See evil
Hear evil
Speak evil
Three Fucked Up Monkeys is what we get, with a motto of:
Fund evil.
Someone has to pay for all the evil shit, and you know who that is?
Fucking us! Isn’t that great? Isn’t it dandy that we get to pay for endless Fuckity Fuck Fucking Destruction… Boy, I’ll tell ya what, sure makes me proud to be an American! I can’t wait to vote!
*vomit*
It was about this time last year that I made a game plan with a good friend for our sanity right now, or whatever remains of it on a good day. The plan in effect is very simple: get through November 2024, which was always a guaranteed dumpster fire, no matter who or what.
And if we’re being really honest, get through January, since we know confirmation of elections also has high potential for massive fuckery.
To stay sane, we agreed to be deliberate about media consumption this election season, but especially this close to the Presidential Catapult into the Sun, I mean, Election Day.
I’m happy to report we have both decreased our screen time and reset our social media algorithms to filter out echo chambers, content cobwebs, and improve timely and more relevant hashtag alignment. Managed to rope in another two friends as well.
Improve your media algorithms
If you’re curious how to do this, here’s 2 quick options I’ve learned working with social media algorithms and training AI models that use both content and behavior pattern data. Do either of these, preferably both, and you will notice a positive difference within 24-48 hours. No shit.
Reset your screen time muscle memory.
Use your phone’s screen time settings for daily time limits on individual media apps. Start with a screen time app limit close to the time you spend using the app now (your phone tells you this) and lower that time a smidge each week.
Don’t group media apps together, this is a recipe for time limit failure. Customize each app to your actual screen time habits. Also, don’t use time settings built into the app (if they have it at all), because you have to use the app to adjust your screen time preferences, and the goal is to use the app/s less, not more.
Once your muscle memory catches up to your deliberate attempt to look at certain media apps less, you’ll stop opening apps without realizing it, and after a couple of weeks you’ll have less desire to open those apps as much as you use to. Then you’ll find the number of times you pick up your phone (your phone tells you this, too) starts to drop drastically. Phantom vibrations, all but disappear for many.
Clear your app cache to give your algorithm a little reset.
You can do this within some individual app settings, or the easiest way—delete the app from your phone and re-download it. All of the content trails (cache) you build up using apps for months or years change the structure of your algorithm. Everyone has different algorithms, like unique technofuedal snowflakes.
Algorithms input and output based on enormous bits and pieces of your data, your behavior within apps, and even your relationship with your phone as a whole. There’s tons of useless clutter data in our algorithms that builds up over time; this is why content feeds can feel stuck, because they literally are.
Like anything, a good cleaning to air things out is healthy, our data and algorithms are no different. If you really want to better understand how algorithms work, know that they work best with information that goes through iterations, or a process of changes, new information, new priorities.
Tech companies don’t want us to clean out and declutter our data closets, like, ever, at all, for any reason. Why? It’s potential loss of billions in ad revenue and sales. Each data point (you have trillions) is a future dollar. If any of that seems exaggerated, look up the term data brokerage. Duke University has an interesting monitoring program if you want a quick rundown option and a Bladerunner-eque rabbit hole option.
Algorithms collapse in stagnant environments, and these companies are not going to teach us how to better use algorithms for our benefit. We have to do it ourselves, and it’s not as hard as folks think; you just have to try and learn.
There’s a lot more you can do to filter out some of the incessant noise + algorithm bias and corporate shenanigans… if you’re curious, let me know and I can write more. I honestly have no idea if anyone cares to hear about machine learning and how most AI models aren’t doing what people think they are, they’re doing other, worse, things.
That was a long way around to say I’m being deliberate with my media engagement and it helps tremendously. Maybe it’ll help you, too.
Maybe we will survive the election, and one less awful, fuckity fuck fuck thing will be over. For a few years, anyway. And that’ll be nice.
A lot can happen between now and November. A lot more can go wrong if the U.S. and Western allies continue to follow the Three Fucked Up Monkeys approach to domestic and foreign policy. Sometimes survive and fighting to stay in this fucked up world becomes a form of spiteful resistance, and I refuse to die before Dick Cheney. For a few years, anyway.
In the meantime, I’ll share more extra fucks to get us through this hellacious year.
✨Good journey, Dame Maggie✨