too old for tiktok. too bored for mastodon.

A personal reflection on where everyone’s gone in 2025, and why I keep returning to the messier, more inspiring places.

Of course I also have my conflicting thoughts regarding how Elon Musk behaves publicly, privacy policy of Meta or TikTok and so on. I even find WhatsApp challenging, especially for my kids - because of its increased focus on Stories and followers.

Although it's very easy to bash and criticise social media, it still has a lot of value in the glimpses in between. That's, of course, the reason it's so hard to put away.

Shifting Platforms and Experiments

The last couple of years I've been experimenting a bit with my channels. Like most Europeans I started to move away from X and more towards Mastodon and Bluesky. And like most people my age (late thirties), I feel too old for TikTok but not quite old enough for Facebook.

All well and fine, and it's kind of politically correct that I mainly should be using stuff like Mastodon.

The problem is just that I find it kind of boring.

It's good not to get constant dopamine hits, but honestly I don't even feel like checking or using it. And Bluesky is not much different for me.
On the other hand, even though I had both Instagram and X uninstalled and logged out for a long time, I've lately started looking at it again, and generally find a lot more inspiring stuff.

Maybe It’s Just Me?

Maybe it's because I am a rather visually and sound-oriented person, or maybe it's just that both my Mastodon and Bluesky profiles have mostly tech-heavy follows, so the visual content is pretty sparse.

But my personal theories are as follows:

  • Developers and personal bloggers are on Mastodon.

  • Front-end developers, Americans and more normies are on Bluesky. More similar to the feeling from X, but in a very supportive non-confrontational/toxic environment.

  • Low-tech developers (Framer, Webflow ++), designers, athletes and public figures +++ are still on X.

  • Photographers, designers, friends, family, brands, normies (multigenerational), athletes and public figures +++ are on Instagram

  • Don't know much about Tiktok, but seems youth-dominated, very high paced and entertainment driven.

  • Linkedin is for work. Sometimes regurgitated stuff from above channels, other times mainly low-key bragging of achievements.

So where does that leave me?

Sometimes I am really into the tech side of things, and then I feel at home in Mastodon and Bluesky. Although I miss out on certain people I appreciate opinions from, it's not much of a loss. But in terms of visual and design inspiration and just general inspiring or entertaining tidbits I definitely feel X and Instagram is in a different league. And where Instagram is very polished, I do draw a lot of inspiration from the more "build in public", "WIP" vibe I get on X. I can’t seem to find that same raw, in-progress energy anywhere else.