On this day in 2016 I posted my first post to Gab.
How and why did that happen?
I knew I was fed up with twitter shadow-banning me, and purging folks like me, removing thousands of my followers. At one time I had over 100,000 twitter followers. Initially, I followed a lot of people who followed me back. But for several years – after my tweets got popular -- I had only been following folks back if they followed me. There were a couple of thousand more people following me than I was following; not sure how that happened.
I received lots of interactions on Twitter and many folks followed links to my old blog, which no longer exists. I was quite pleased. Then the crackdown came. Suddenly, it was as though no one could see my tweets anymore. Literally thousands of my conservative followers got disconnected from me, and then disappeared. Somehow, I ended up with fewer followers than I was following, which implies I’m just following a bunch of folks and hoping they follow me back, which by that time I had not done in a number of years. I still had over 80,000 followers, but they couldn’t see my tweets anymore.
Twitter was the place I first started posting after my bungled suicide attempt in February 2009. During the years I was having PTSD (Vietnam trauma) therapy sessions, I tweeted several times every day. It was very important to me. It helped me remember how to think about things, forcing me to squeeze my thoughts into 140 characters. I had gone through over six years of a very dark time, alternating between long bouts of depression and soul-crushing days of anxiety, where I rarely had the energy to think about anything. Posting on Twitter helped me get back some of my brainpower. And then, I had to accept that all the folks who appreciated my progress, which I talked about on Twitter a lot, could no longer see anything I posted.
As painful as the thought might be, it was time to start over. I knew I wanted somewhere I could share my thoughts, a place I could count on to let me have my say, to let me speak freely.
I found Gab.
Gab was still in beta but it seemed like the perfect place for me. I started posting and following folks. It was easy to find people with similar political interests. After a few months I reverted to my process of only following people after they have followed me. That seems to work well, if the goal is to have followers who appreciate what you have to say.
Then I made probably the most important decision that I have made while on Gab: I started a group. In December 2018, I created The Good Morning Brigade. I had been posting a good morning message for quite a long time by then. Occasionally, I wanted to look back at an old posting and found that quite difficult to accomplish. So I decided to create a group where I could put all of my “good morning” posts. I figured a few people would probably join the group and that was okay. It wouldn’t be very many folks because of the extremely narrow focus of the group: a “good morning” greeting.
What I did not realize at the time was how pleasant those greetings would be to see and interact with. I knew that some folks were already saying good morning to the Gab general membership, because I occasionally saw those posts. But the impact of seeing a number of them grouped together was something I had not considered. The group began to grow.
We now have over 4000 members. I never imagined anything like that was possible. It is gratifying to know that so many other good folks are enjoying this group. Recently, group owners were given the ability to pin a post to the top of the group page. I think of myself as an intelligent person, but that idea had not crossed my mind. And it is genius.
Each day I can look through all the great posts inside my group and select one that will inspire the members, and also inspire other folks to consider joining the group. Anytime the pinned post, or any other post within the group, gets reposted … it appears on the homepage for other folks to see. If your post gets pinned to the group for that day, then it will receive much more attention than it normally would, a perfect reward for a wonderful “good morning” greeting.
The thoughtful interactions and “likes” I receive are an important part of my mornings. They boost me. They give me energy, give me warmth, gratification, and, in difficult times they give me solace.
I still post political messages from time to time. I am considering starting another group, this time with a political theme, a group in support of America, her founding ideals, and her future. I have decided to wait until after the election has been finalized. Depending on how all that turns out, I may feel differently about starting another group.
But the thing that I know for certain is that Gab is now much more important to me than twitter ever was. Will I ever see 100 thousand followers here? Who knows? What I do know is that I am committed. I’m in it for the long haul. I'm a donor, a pro member, a Lifetime Patriot, and an investor.
I have the highest regard for @a Andrew Torba and the wonderful team he has assembled. The learning curve for dealing with unexpected massive growth is a bit long, bringing with it complications and frustrations. But here is something we already know: Andrew has weathered a leftist storm of attacks and deplatforming acts beyond anything most of us could imagine, certainly more than anything I would be able to deal with personally. I am so proud of him and his team.
My hope for Gab’s future is that it will continue to prosper and grow, as I believe it will. And I hope that Andrew will eventually come to believe that a blogging feature would be beneficial to gab’s growth and stability, drawing bloggers from around the world who like the idea of having a built-in audience.
On this blog -- my blog -- I have been posting background stories about my photos and the hikes I have taken, along with other stories, poems, personal and political articles. I link most of them to my “good morning” posts at Gab. The problem with external blogs is that some folks don’t want to click on an external link that they might not trust. And, most often, if a person comes from a social media site to visit my blog, they usually leave any comment at the site from which they originated. If I could move my blog to gab.com, then any future comments would be under the blog article, facilitating further discussion, and helping me better gauge an article’s value and popularity.
I believe that the future will bring a better and bigger Gab, a continuingly improved user experience, and millions upon millions more people from around the world, seeking out a place where they can speak freely. I am so glad that I found Gab … and had the good sense to become a member.