SillyPost.net
2025-05-05
written by Niko Viau-Chow-Stuart (Founder)
good day vorers!
so after around a week or two of being trapped at home due to my car breaking down, being super burnt out on everything, and also just generally being really out of it and tired due to some unknown sickness going around, i was struggling quite a bit to get lifeblood and asklyphe stuff out on time.
i'm not sure if it was just demotivation, burnout, or probably a large combination of the two mixed in with my exhaustion, but i needed a break and to just work on something simple for a bit.
i had recently rewatched The Social Network (2010) and somehow i had this completely unrelated thought of "huh, i wonder how hard it'd be to make a social network"
i've wanted to do something like this for years, way before the company started, but one thing that stopped me usually, was that i wasn't sure what i could do that wasn't already achieved way better elsewhere.
i probably wouldn't have done it this time either, unless i had already been thinking of something else;
if you've been on any social media site lately, such as bluesky, some part of the fediverse, or are unlucky enough to still be on twitter; hell, even if not on social media at all, you've probably noticed that a lot of the world seems quite depressing lately.
this definitely isn't caused 100% by social media, in fact i think that social media is just a very small part of why things are kinda depressing; however, in my opinion, the main way that every major social media site functions, whether intentional or not, has the side effect of either consciously or unconsciously making its users end up eventually feeling either sad or angry while using it.
this was (and definitely still is) a huge problem on twitter, is still a problem on bluesky, and is also a problem on the fediverse. unless you curate your feed really well, you're going to end up seeing a ton of posts that just make you angry or upset. this isn't necessarily a bad thing, i think it's still important to keep up-to-date with news and know whats going on in the world; but i think that we also deserve a place where we can just have some pure whimsy without needing to think about that, at least for a little bit
this is when i realized, the issue isn't any of these sites themself; it's that the core concept of how most microblogging sites work causes this to happen.
so i figured i could make something that doesn't have these same issues.
sillypost (available at sillypost.net) is still technically a microblogging site, however it has a lot of key features that are designed to incentivize its users to
- not get into fights
- not engagement bait
- not get angry at someone they don't even know
- keep a relatively happy and carefree environment
with these goals in mind, here are some of the key features of sillypost:
- you can only see the last 10 posts someone has made
- you can only see posts of people you're friends with
- you have to request to be friends with someone
- posts can have a maximum of 64 characters
- you cannot reply to posts, or do what twitter would call "retweeting" or "quote retweeting"
- all user-user actions are private, you can send a dm to someone, but no one knows who you're friends with or who interacted with a post
now you might think initially that this is an incredibly limiting social network, and i would agree with you. it's intentionally limiting because the goal of this isn't to replace something like bluesky or the fediverse, but to provide a place where you can just post whatever short little joke or idea comes into your head, and have it seen be your friends and no one else!
and that's what i think makes sillypost completely different from any other social network.
sillypost is still in beta, you can only join if someone invites you and i'm planning on keeping it that way. i'm very happy with how the launch has gone, and am excited to see where it goes from here!
there's also plenty of stuff planned to keep the site fun and enjoyable, we already have a system for playing small little browser games on the site and are planning on adding more soon!
i also occasionally give out some invite codes on my bluesky account, so keep watch there if you want in!
everything else
as with every other project i've started, this isn't replacing anything else i'm working on.
i'm still working on everything else, although updates might take a bit as i've still been having a bit of a rough time with sickness
i think that this is a really fun side project though, and am very happy so far! (:
best wishes, and happy voring!
image made by @cathodegaytube!