Like any good internet citizen, when I first heard the news, I went looking for memes. Notorious racial scammer Rachel Dolezal, who caused controversy in 2015, was fired from her teaching job for running an OnlyFans account. I needed a good laugh. However, I haven’t had much luck.
I happened to be in foreign territory at Bluesky, the Jack Dorsey-endorsed social media app hailed as The Next Big Thing, when News4 Tucson reported this story. A ghost of a bygone era, his Dolezal is considered the peak of the internet. In June 2015, while serving as president of the local branch of the NAACP in Washington state, she was accused of wearing racial costumes. Although Dolezal was born a white woman, she pretended to be black.
A discussion ensued. Everyone had an opinion about her. There were thought pieces, and thought pieces about those thought pieces. People accused her of putting on some kind of blackface and exploiting a culture she had no right to for her personal gain. “Why can’t Rachel Dolezal transcend her race?” Barry Friedland asked in this article. baltimore sun. Ultimately, Ms. Dolezal resigned and moved on with her life. Anyway, News4 reports that she now goes by Nekechi Diallo, lives in Arizona, and was recently fired from her teaching position after Catalina Foothills district officials discovered she was active as a sex worker. That was the story until it was reported that it had happened. On OnlyFans.
The blessing and curse of social media is its users, and when this news spread, there was intense reaction on several platforms. Except for Blue Sky, where the overall temperature was mildly indifferent. Mr. Dolezal’s local scandal isn’t exactly a litmus test for the app, but it does highlight what Bluesky lacks: harmony among differences.
app opened It was released to the public this month, and I was really interested in what it was about, so I spent the first 48 hours following a typical media diet: scrolling through Twitter, watching TikTok videos shared in group chats, and scrolling through Instagram. I decided to stop hiding behind it and focus on finding out. I happened to come across a few casual jabs — “The naughty disgusting demon is summoned from the Internet Archive. Pandora, close your damn box,” writer Saeed Jones posted, but the response was relatively muted. He was quiet. There was talk about the shooting at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade. I also happened to come across a wonderful photo of Alexander Chee’s French bulldog, Freya. Freya especially likes the sound of wind chimes. However, the news of Dolezal’s firing generated few decent memes.
My WIRED colleague Kate Knibbs calls Bluesky “easy to use,” and that’s because it’s very easy to use. not original—If you’ve ever tweeted, you’ll be familiar with the interface. ” There’s a lightness to the interaction that reminds me of what I loved in the early days of social media: posting purely for fun. His first 48 hours at Bluesky were like completing a puzzle. It was climatic and mildly interesting. I kept waiting for something more to happen. The first day in particular was wasted with the tedious task of finding people to follow and adjusting the flow and type of conversations to suit my needs. Few of the conversations taking place seemed to be happening in real time.
Part of it is a people issue. At the time Bluesky ended invite-only membership, his number of active users on Android was close to 2 million, according to estimates from his digital data and analytics company Samelweb, compared to his previous daily average. was her 600,000. The sudden downturn resembled the same boom-and-bust pattern that occurred with Threads. Three days after opening the platform, Similarweb found that Bluesky’s daily active users on Android had dropped by 25%. (The company did not have estimates to share for his iOS users.)
life cycle The development of the social internet is one of tenacious rebirth, and my current frustration may be one of having to start all over again. Are we doomed to rebuild our digital presence every few years as platforms die and new ones replace them?