I'm going to make a point of posting more regularly here. So sick of Facebook. I lost a lot of friends and was called a lot of nasty things for daring to point out some things that are now coming to be commonly accepted in the media narrative as the Overton window shifts. I'd like to note that I never devolved into the name calling, that vitriolic accusations or any of it. I am sure that none of those people will ever apologize, or even be self aware enough to understand how dangerous I consider their hysteria in light of the things that were said. People lose their jobs and businesses over the kind of accusations that were thrown around. I thoroughly resent having to use a social media platform for marketing that blatantly fosters such artificial, incorrect and divisive rhetoric via censorship and forced-viral views. That they've just announced the narrative in question will no longer be censored simply means there's a new political objective. It's all just propaganda at this point, and it's hard to tell which part is intentional, and which part is absolutely hysterical moral panic. I suspect that at the top 5% or so it's entirely intentional and the remaining 95% are simply caught up in the madness.

Either way I'm rethinking my entire business model. I just don't want to use most social media. Facebook in particular pretty much eliminates the kind of boundaries I have normally kept between people of greatly differing perspectives. It's never bothered me to be around people with whom I disagree... until they started attacking others, and I'm sorry to say it, but it's really only happening on one side of the current duality. Facebook constantly shoves arguments in your face, and there's no good way to ignore it. I blocked literally half of my audience who consistently post outrage porn, and installed Social Fixer, which helped somewhat. Then... it became obvious that my business posts were being throttled due to my lack of engagement. It's insidious. You can't tell me that for over a decade my business page audience hovers naturally within plus or minus twenty to 3250, never mind seeing that posts are only reaching a hundred or so people out of that 3250. It's a scam on top of everything else.

So the virus, which almost certainly came from a lab in China as a result of gain of function research, (that forbidden topic,) hit the final nail in the coffin of my damascus ring business, and most of the other nails came from China too. After over fifteen years of being one of very few individuals doing what I do, factories in China started pumping out damascus rings and encouraging people to create fake, online drop shipping businesses. I uncovered multiple fronts online and on Etsy, often even using the same stock photos. Etsy didn't care, for what it is worth, and I know that several other actual artisans notified them as well. I am not excited to see the degree of capitulation to a country, by the political class and the big tech titans, that has caused so much chaos and harm, anbd which is obviously engaged in what amounts to fifth generation warfare against the US. I don't think any of these entities have my best interests at heart, that's for sure. But for that kind of wrongthink, I'd doubtless be censured, censored and accused by the mob. Well done, lads.

So it's really difficult to move forward. I've been out of business for a year. No one is getting married or having weddings, and full time SEO gamers with drop shipping businesses can spend their full energies on google stats, since they don't actually make, or in most cases even handle actual products. I have a new direction, which is tying my love of beekeeping into a story and writing a poetic saga & songs, making things from the story and hopefully a book and CD. I actually just want to do this, even if there were another source of subsistence income, I'd be doing this. I just really don't want to market on social media. Patreon is working as a support model, but I have to drive traffic there. Maybe this platform can provide another avenue. So I'm just going to get content on here and then figure out how to drive subscriptions.

But for now I know maybe one person is reading any of this. LOL. I just need to vent into the ether. This platform seems like a positive concept, but I have to really think on how to utilize it.