I’d like to explain some unfollowing I’m about to do. Please note, that I’m not sharing this to make a statement, but out of respect. (And a little for myself kind of as therapy.) It’s been three years since I joined Nostr, the social network. I loved it immediately for its unique builders vibe and the polite ethos. It’s truly a pleasure to be around such folks. I remember thinking wow this guy has thousands of followers and he’s taking time to explain things to me, the noob. Thanks @Dikaios1517. That felt (and still feels) special. I remember getting zapped 2100 sats for a text I wrote about my first impressions on Nostr. That feeling of being zapped is still magical, no matter the amount. I remember seeing @Efrat Fenigson on stage at BTC Prague two years ago talking about Nostr, following her right after, her following me back, even commenting and zapping on one of my photos - and thinking, what a cool community. 💜 And I remember Nostriga. One of a kind spirit of event, where I met @BitPopArt and got one of his artworks. Meeting @jack , @UNCLE ROCKSTAR and @Marce and being in awe that they did this amazing thing for us - to attend for free. Another ultimate community vibes. 🫂 Here on Nostr, I used to enjoy all those exciting notes - memes, future predictions (as poor as they come by design 🙃), learning how many Christians are on this weird techy network, the first artists incoming, discovering @WILLPOWER 🔥, @Edward Snowden appearing, zappathons, known influencers coming and leaving after few days when they learned their usual approach won‘t be any good here, girls trying to make nostr their onlyfans alternative… About a year ago I proudly became nostr-only. And Nostr didn’t really change. But I did. Over the past few months I’ve noticed I’ve become more sensitive to certain topics and the constant stream of big, intense discussions about the world. Politics, macro debates, AI, BTC conversations - none of it is wrong. I just realized I don’t currently have the mental space for so much of it. We artistic souls are not made for this. Since I didn‘t find the way to organize my followlist into separate feeds (at least not without the need to use multiple apps and tools), I’m going to unfollow some npubs whose content mostly revolves around those heavier topics. If that happens to be you, please don’t take it personally. I get to know a few of you personally and I still appreciate you as a person. I will still happily have that beer with you when we meet. And I may very well follow you again in the future. I stay nostr-only. Over the past months I’ve had some great opportunities to work on nostr-related projects, more of those are already on my roadmap, and in many ways I feel even more committed than before. 🤘🏻💀 For now, though, I just need a calmer feed. More art, crafts, building, creativity, and less intensity. Thank you if you made it this far. I appreciate it. ☮️ PS: Muting isn’t really what I’m looking for. I prefer adjusting who I follow while still occasionally seeing reposts in my wider network. image

Replies (26)

SimOne's avatar
SimOne 3 months ago
I unfollowed a lot recently, and my feed is mainly inspiration and GM’s. I’ve almost halved my time on here because I found myself motivated to do more in the real world. Less doom scrolling. Good for you.
Kat's avatar
Kat 3 months ago
I'm glad you said this and you are not alone in feeling that way. I still love Nostr, but I've started to feel overwhelmed by certain conversation topics in my feed too. The downside of having no algorithm is that you see everything from everyone you follow. And sometimes it can get too much. That said, I'm always happy to see your posts in my feed and I appreciate you being here 💜
Understandable. I personally did an artist dedicated npub for my photography only @Goldgraphy There I follow only certain artists here on Nostr and use it to just post my work. For heavier topics I use this as my main account. Switching between the two is trivial thanks to Primal.
Let me reframe this: for you, the use case might be different, but I see Nostr not as a social network, rather, as an identity protocol. It links your actions to your identity, meaning you decide which actions are tied to which of your identities. Here's an example. Imagine you travel often and need to order taxis in various cities. The problem is that each city uses a different app: Uber, Lyft, Cabify, Bolt, etc. If those apps supported Nostr, you could log into all of them using the same Nostr identity. They would share your passenger information (ratings, payment methods, etc.), making the experience seamless. But you probably wouldn't want to use that same identity when booking a hotel or buying groceries. You could simply use a different Nostr identity for those activities. That's the flexibility Nostr offers: you control which identity you use for which context.