Longtime readers know I’ve often advocated taking breaks from social media. It really helps, especially now, in resetting your mental circuits after absorbing so much horror, inhumanity and rage bait.

Take a walk (maybe a photo hike, which is what I used to do pre-pandemic, and really need to do again). Watch a movie (the less political the better). Make an ice cream date with your bestie (I did that this weekend with Sarah, who’s moving out of state soon 😭). Read a book (I recommend The Thursday Murder Club series). The possibilities are endless.

But if you simply must use social media every day, at least find a platform that offers more laughs, support and encouragement than rage.

For me and many of my friends, that’s Threads. Sure, it’s run by Meta, the same Mark Zuckerberg company that runs Facebook (which I didn’t join till the pandemic, and is one of the reasons I absolutely must do a social-media cleanse each Saturday), Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. However, the way the Threads algorithm works, you can pretty easily tailor your feed to your tastes.

(Yes, I know there are people who are going to accuse me of staying in my echo chamber. This is not that. It’s a corner of the Internet where I have more control over what I see, and even though my profile is public there, which it’s not on Facebook, I don’t have to spend all my time dealing with idjits who just want to piss in my cereal because it amuses them. I read news, as well as posts on Facebook and elsewhere, so it’s not like I’m walling myself off or creating an alternate reality. Social media should never be considered a primary source for news, so if it is for you, you need help and a course in media literacy.)

If you spend a lot of time perusing and replying to political content and rage bait, that’s what’s going to show up in your “For You” feed. But life doesn’t have to be like that. It’s OK if you prefer to have a little fun with your social media, especially in times as dark as these. I tend to use Threads as a lagniappe, something to reward myself with after a tough day and clear away the dark clouds (not that there aren’t dark clouds there too; they’re just not as prevalent).

As much as I’m not a fan of artificial intelligence (especially generative AI), Threads’ AI-driven algorithm really seems to work well, analyzing what you read and respond to to rank posts in your feed based on what it has decided are of more use to you. Further, as Kirsti Lang of Buffer.com wrote, “The algorithm prioritizes content that provides genuine value, such as education, problem-solving, or entertainment, over engagement-baiting.”

If you’re like me, more a social-media consumer than creator, that’s just fine, and results in a feed full of goofy humor, cat-tax evaders (if you mention a cat in a post, you must post a picture of said cat as cat tax, and it’s vigorously enforced by users), people celebrating sobriety or seeking moral support, word-nerdiness and just all-around fun.

And drama. So. Much. Drama.

As Lori Widmer Bean posted last week:

Why I’m never leaving Threads:

Ankle doilies

Slavery wallpaper

Miss Helen

The attic leaking brown stuff

CEOs being challenged to eat their products

Smart watches calling 911

And that’s just this week.

Ankle doilies? Supposedly “the secret to making basic jeans look expensive,” which made Imani Gandy reply, “You need to get those jeans professionally hemmed. You can’t just cut them with scissors and then add a Ruth Bader Ginsburg ankle doily of dissent.” (The comments on the original are hilarious!)

Slavery wallpaper? Found under paneling in a farmhouse foyer in excellent condition, but with slavery idealized as part of Southern culture (as one commenter said, it looks pretty from far away with the cotton blossoms, but when you look closer … yikes). The current owner plans to cover it in shiplap, though some have advised donating it to a museum (since our history should be remembered so we don’t repeat it).

Miss Helen? That would be the saga of the 80-year-old neighbor in a Los Angeles apartment building who fell out of her bed and was heard calling for help by upstairs neighbor Whitney Simone. Whitney has basically adopted a grandma and is checking in on her each day; it’s an incredibly sweet story. Awwww!

Attic? I missed out on most of that and the initial post has been deleted, but apparently a woman had moved into a rent house in Pennsylvania with a padlocked attic that was leaking a brown liquid and gathering flies, leading many to speculate there was a body in the attic. Now after backlash (more on that below), the woman has deleted her account.

CEOs? Well, can you blame the demand that they eat their companies’ products after seeing the cringy video of the McDonald’s CEO? I mean, seriously, if you’re going to promote your company’s new burger, try taking a real bite and not acting like it’s beneath you.

Smart watch? Apparently (best I can tell), that refers to a woman whose watch dialed 911 after she said “Explosion! Explosion!” … referring to her 6-month-old son’s poop. (As much as I talk to myself in the middle of an IBS flare, it’s a good thing I don’t wear a smart watch.)

Is it any wonder why I love this app?

And that’s only scratching the surface of the drama and delights on Threads. There’s also the sister of Connie’s dead daughter (who gained a lot of Internet parents and aunts and uncles), the bride who canceled her wedding but paid all the vendors, and emotional-support Danes.

Every day you find people sharing the best and worst of their lives. For many, it may be just screaming into the void, but most of the people who inhabit Threads are kind, so genuineness gets met with the same (those people who are on Threads just to stir up trouble usually are found out pretty quickly; one big clue is someone who’s posted no threads, but plenty of replies that tend toward the insulting/hyperpartisan/pickup lines).

Sometimes you find things that just make you laugh at the moment you most need it, like Jennifer Beaver’s cursed Dollar Tree crochet projects (one more lesson, a la Maggie McGaugh, that AI is everywhere, including in advertising and packaging for home decor and crafts items), the sometimes wacky names of English villages, workplace stalkers (almost always cats, but occasionally dogs), Richard’s wife popping up again to tell the porn-bots commenting on his account that he died, any number of people who, like me, are currently dealing with cats that aren’t ours but think they should be (Mooch, you rascal) … or Kathy Griffin.

Trolls and bots are a problem with Threads, just as with other platforms, but if you police your feed well, you’ll rarely be plagued by them. Serious journalists post there, so you can get news, but if you mostly want to decompress from the cesspool of reality and other platforms like X/Twitter, Truth Social and Facebook, you won’t have any problems finding your people.

Cat people. Dog people. Photographers (oh, so many great ones to follow!). Mutual aid. LGBTQ+, mental health, cancer and sobriety support. Stephen King and Molly, The Thing of Evil (an absolutely adorable pooch belonging to the author). People persevering despite setbacks. Library joy.

Yes, sometimes people will go too far, as in the case of the attic lady, who took down her post because she said was being harassed by people doxxing and threatening her, and now she’s been outed as a possible scoundrel due to past problematic posts involving transphobia, etc., after which she deleted her account. (I’m not exaggerating about the drama; sometimes it’s like a soap opera, complete with villain arcs, which makes us even nosier. Another notable drama was last year’s Stickergate [there was another one in 2024, involving Sticker Junkie capitalizing on a pro-Trump text sent out by Sticker Mule to its email list, prompting a boycott; Sticker Junkie’s sales soared], in which a sticker designer said she was being threatened by someone, but it turns out she apparently fabricated the whole thing and was also stealing other people’s designs. Whew!)

But on the whole, Threads is an escape into a world where, for the most part, people care about each other, stick up for those who need it, and share the little things that bring them joy.

A little joy in the world isn’t too much to ask, is it?