![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burendasan4*Just a warning: this is kinda long. I have made cuts to prevent overwhelm*
So I'm on this social network called Peach. You probably have never heard of it (then again, maybe you have). It was created by Dom Hofmann, who was also at the creator of Vine. It's like a cuter version of Twitter with fun features like "magic words" (words you type in to bring up some sort of functionality) and the "Peach oracle" (an online Magic 8 Ball). It was made in the image of a typical social network but has become a bit of an outlier.
Peach came out in early January of 2016. At the time, I was at the ALA Midwinter conference in Boston when I saw that a friend from grad school mentioned on Instagram that she had signed up for this new app so I decided to check it out. It exuded an air of fun, so I liked it right away. I posted pictures of the conference and other activities during my trip to Boston, joking that it was a "Peach exclusive" and that I was "live-Peaching" the conference. Even though I didn't know anyone on Peach in person (besides my grad school friend), I tried to "friend" as many people as I could. A lot of hype began to build around Peach on the Internet. There were fun accounts like the Merriam-Webster account (I think it was official) that would post a "word of the day" with an explanation about the word's meaning. Unfortunately, the hype only lasted less than a month before, for whatever reason, articles online declared "Peach is dead" so of course, people stopped using it. The friend from grad school who had alerted me to Peach posted to it once or maybe twice and never posted on there again.
As more months went by, it started to become apparent to those of us who remained that updates to the app were slowing down to a trickle and Peach's Twitter account had become inactive. We expected the app to shut down any day. It was common to see posts that would say, "In the case that Peach shuts down, you can find me at the following social media accounts..."
Then, around the time that iOS 11 came out, there was an unexpected update to the Peach app. In the update notes, we were assured that while Peach was no longer being actively developed, there were no plans to take it down. So ever since, we have continued interacting, creating the online equivalent of squatting and building a life in an abandoned building. I have stepped away from Peach for certain periods of time whenever I've gone on social media breaks, but somehow, have always gone back.
People have come and gone, but over time, a core group of people that I followed have remained. They mostly come from the US and the UK. It's been interesting following their lives (or what they choose to share of it). I've never met any of these people in person yet it feels like they are part of my life...but then again, most of them don't really share personal details of their lives, so I don't really know them that well.
And yet...it's precisely because I don't know them that I feel free to vent about work (one of the few places online where I have done so!) and the others have felt free to do the same. What is at work is that anonymity that people used to love about the Internet, but has gone away for most people with the advent of social networks like Facebook, where you know all your connections in person so you have to be careful what you say in order not to offend.
My interactions with the Peach group have been very positive and we're always encouraging each other when the need arises. Yet sometimes I feel frustrated because our interactions seem so shallow at times. Some people post religiously just to say "Good morning" or "Good night" or that they are having lunch. One time I came to the overwhelming conclusion this group consisted of very lonely people. But if that's the case, then this must also apply to me.
Functionally, Peach as an app is far from perfect but we've long stopped expecting updates and have made do with what we have. It has, on occasion, gone down for a few hours. For those times we can't seem to sign on to Peach, we've created online temporary shelters in a Peach-related Slack channel and on Twitter where we go to ask, "Is it just me...?." We get nervous and wonder if "this is it" but once goes back online, everyone breathes an online sigh of relief and the "Good mornings" and "Good nights" continue as usual.
Then over a week ago, Peach went down. Only this time...it didn't go back up. We took refuge on Twitter, where it turns out that there were a good number of other people who still use Peach and were also upset that it was down. There were tweets addressed to Dom Hofmann and to the official Peach Twitter account, begging for an update. Finally, a few days later, there was a rare tweet from the Peach Twitter account saying that they were going to work on getting Peach back up "next week." It seemed to assuage the displaced. We carry the hope that we'll be back on Peach soon, but I have my suspicions. Today there was another tweet from the Peach Twitter account saying that fixing Peach was taking longer than expected, so who knows when it will be back up, if at all...
Meanwhile, my group has created a more "private" refuge on the MeWe social network. While there is a semblance of a return to Peach-like "normalcy" on MeWe, the shallowness of our interactions has become more apparent. Reply to someone's post with an emoji and when you post something yourself, you get emojis as a response. But what's worse is that I feel like I've taken a step backwards in my efforts to cut back on distracting apps. For example, I had been good about cutting back my use of Twitter but in order to continue communications with the group, I've had to expose myself to Twitter and MeWe, which enable more procrastination and distraction.
So in conclusion: I don't know what will ultimately happen to Peach or what I'll eventually do to bring my social media use back to a healthy balance. Still, I am in awe of Peach and how it has managed to stay alive for so long and how against all odds, it's become a place where people feel safe to express themselves.
So I'm on this social network called Peach. You probably have never heard of it (then again, maybe you have). It was created by Dom Hofmann, who was also at the creator of Vine. It's like a cuter version of Twitter with fun features like "magic words" (words you type in to bring up some sort of functionality) and the "Peach oracle" (an online Magic 8 Ball). It was made in the image of a typical social network but has become a bit of an outlier.
Peach came out in early January of 2016. At the time, I was at the ALA Midwinter conference in Boston when I saw that a friend from grad school mentioned on Instagram that she had signed up for this new app so I decided to check it out. It exuded an air of fun, so I liked it right away. I posted pictures of the conference and other activities during my trip to Boston, joking that it was a "Peach exclusive" and that I was "live-Peaching" the conference. Even though I didn't know anyone on Peach in person (besides my grad school friend), I tried to "friend" as many people as I could. A lot of hype began to build around Peach on the Internet. There were fun accounts like the Merriam-Webster account (I think it was official) that would post a "word of the day" with an explanation about the word's meaning. Unfortunately, the hype only lasted less than a month before, for whatever reason, articles online declared "Peach is dead" so of course, people stopped using it. The friend from grad school who had alerted me to Peach posted to it once or maybe twice and never posted on there again.
As more months went by, it started to become apparent to those of us who remained that updates to the app were slowing down to a trickle and Peach's Twitter account had become inactive. We expected the app to shut down any day. It was common to see posts that would say, "In the case that Peach shuts down, you can find me at the following social media accounts..."
Then, around the time that iOS 11 came out, there was an unexpected update to the Peach app. In the update notes, we were assured that while Peach was no longer being actively developed, there were no plans to take it down. So ever since, we have continued interacting, creating the online equivalent of squatting and building a life in an abandoned building. I have stepped away from Peach for certain periods of time whenever I've gone on social media breaks, but somehow, have always gone back.
People have come and gone, but over time, a core group of people that I followed have remained. They mostly come from the US and the UK. It's been interesting following their lives (or what they choose to share of it). I've never met any of these people in person yet it feels like they are part of my life...but then again, most of them don't really share personal details of their lives, so I don't really know them that well.
And yet...it's precisely because I don't know them that I feel free to vent about work (one of the few places online where I have done so!) and the others have felt free to do the same. What is at work is that anonymity that people used to love about the Internet, but has gone away for most people with the advent of social networks like Facebook, where you know all your connections in person so you have to be careful what you say in order not to offend.
My interactions with the Peach group have been very positive and we're always encouraging each other when the need arises. Yet sometimes I feel frustrated because our interactions seem so shallow at times. Some people post religiously just to say "Good morning" or "Good night" or that they are having lunch. One time I came to the overwhelming conclusion this group consisted of very lonely people. But if that's the case, then this must also apply to me.
Functionally, Peach as an app is far from perfect but we've long stopped expecting updates and have made do with what we have. It has, on occasion, gone down for a few hours. For those times we can't seem to sign on to Peach, we've created online temporary shelters in a Peach-related Slack channel and on Twitter where we go to ask, "Is it just me...?." We get nervous and wonder if "this is it" but once goes back online, everyone breathes an online sigh of relief and the "Good mornings" and "Good nights" continue as usual.
Then over a week ago, Peach went down. Only this time...it didn't go back up. We took refuge on Twitter, where it turns out that there were a good number of other people who still use Peach and were also upset that it was down. There were tweets addressed to Dom Hofmann and to the official Peach Twitter account, begging for an update. Finally, a few days later, there was a rare tweet from the Peach Twitter account saying that they were going to work on getting Peach back up "next week." It seemed to assuage the displaced. We carry the hope that we'll be back on Peach soon, but I have my suspicions. Today there was another tweet from the Peach Twitter account saying that fixing Peach was taking longer than expected, so who knows when it will be back up, if at all...
Meanwhile, my group has created a more "private" refuge on the MeWe social network. While there is a semblance of a return to Peach-like "normalcy" on MeWe, the shallowness of our interactions has become more apparent. Reply to someone's post with an emoji and when you post something yourself, you get emojis as a response. But what's worse is that I feel like I've taken a step backwards in my efforts to cut back on distracting apps. For example, I had been good about cutting back my use of Twitter but in order to continue communications with the group, I've had to expose myself to Twitter and MeWe, which enable more procrastination and distraction.
So in conclusion: I don't know what will ultimately happen to Peach or what I'll eventually do to bring my social media use back to a healthy balance. Still, I am in awe of Peach and how it has managed to stay alive for so long and how against all odds, it's become a place where people feel safe to express themselves.
