Do You All Gatekeep SW?

@ViciDraco Yes. That’s how I prefer it myself. I have even added old EP friends onto my other social media sites. I still have some on there too. However, adding friends I have in real life to here? Fuck no.

@HumanEarth hi 👋 from another EP er

@Gingerbreadspice Yeah, I know how that goes. I was on EP for many years when I discovered that my old real life bestie was also on the app anonymously. She found me first. Oh, the deleting spree I immediately went on! It’s definitely not the kind of thing you ever want to happen, especially if you use this site like your diary.

@dareme Valid. This is my personal preference too.

@PerfectionOfTheHeart me too just learning the term

@PerfectionOfTheHeart Usually I’m the one who never understands what people are saying nowadays and has to ask for clarification. It’s nice to see that here on SW I’m the one who has to do the explaining instead of being the one scratching my head. 😂

@Uncfred I joined EP two years after you had left in 2010. I was 16 or 17 at the time. I was very active on there until the site shut down and everybody transferred to Similar Worlds (I think this was sometime around 2016 or 2017). I was on and off during that time until I eventually went inactive around 2021 and only recently returned. It’s nice to see that everything is exactly the same as I left it all these years ago.

@zonavar68 When I say “gatekeeping” I mean keeping the site a secret from those you know in real life so that you can post more freely on here and not be too inhibited by having people you know in real life on the site.

@Just4fun Yeah. I don’t remember too much about my old posts anymore. They are still here, but I haven’t rummaged through them much. But I do remember not wanting anybody I knew in real life to see them so I know they were probably pretty personal.

@deadmoon exactly the same here. I keep thinking I wil go back and read them. Maybe take some down. I do know still how great it felt to write them

@Blondily Lol, I feel ya about the clingy men. 😂 Those have been spamming my inbox since I was 16 or 17 on this app and that hasn’t changed to date, lol.

@deadmoon it never will 😂

@Pretzel Fair and valid, lol.

@Jonjdw Doesn’t that make some people extra curious though? 😅

@deadmoon does not seem to. I’m not sure how many social media sites there are out there. If I remember correctly, only one coworker asked what the name of the site was and I said I’m not telling. It’s anonymous and it’s gonna stay that way.

@V00doo We're grateful. Don't tell my wife, BTW.

@deadmoon Haha! Yeah I dunno half of what people are saying anymore. But no I don't gatekeep this place, I never talked about EP either back in the day to people. Maybe just an unconscious keeping of the worlds apart.

@Allelse I get it. I do the same whenever I am talking to someone from Gen Z, lol. I probably had to ask what “gatekeeping” meant the first time I heard it too. But it essentially means guarding something or keeping something a secret. What you described might be gatekeeping though for the purpose of keeping your SW life and your real life separate.

@deadmoon Yeah I suppose it is, though I know my few other friends also wouldn't be interested. I mean at least EP was an insane nut house, but it's a bit calmer here, so not as exciting.

@RedBaron It means keeping the site a secret from others to keep your private and anonymous virtual life here and your real life separate from each other. And it is a perfectly normal thing for some people to desire this separation and choose to gatekeep SW for that reason. Not sure why the defensiveness in your response. It’s a matter of personal preference.

@deadmoon That’s ridiculous IMO.

SW is on a thing called the WORLDWIDE WEB, aka the INTERNET. It’s in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

The Internet is a huge place accessible by maybe a billion people. You as an individual don’t have the ability to keep a website secret from anyone.

It’s amazing to me that you believe you possess that kind of power.

You confused my astonishment for defensiveness.

@RedBaron Just because a website is a public domain doesn’t mean everybody automatically knows about its existence or would easily be able to access it. This is a very obscure social networking site. If I don’t want to share its existence with those I know in real life, they may very well never find out this site exists. So yes, we all do have some level of control over how many people in our lives have access to the site by simply not bringing up its existence. I could choose to get everybody I know on this site or I could choose not to by simply not advertising it. The odds of it being found organically are very low due to its obscurity.

I’m a bit confused by your astonishment, tbh. It’s not like this is an uncommon practice, lol. Plenty of people don’t advertise the site and this does, by default, keep a lot of people in the dark about its existence.

@NudasPriest Right?! Like some random person is actually going to 'accidentally' find this obscure site? Mmhm. Sure.😏