📌 FriendRewind Etiquette for New Users (:

Hi new people!! 👋 If you are used to newer platforms, joining a non-algorithmic social media site can come with a learning curve. 

Before sending someone a friend request, please read their profile. People often explain who they want to connect with, what communities they are looking for, and what kinds of interactions they are comfortable with. Sending a request without reading any of that can make it seem like you are adding people randomly or have bad intentions.

It is also best not to send someone a friend request and immediately message them. When there has been no interaction first, it can feel overly familiar and may make people think you are soliciting something, ragebaiting, bullying, or trying to cause trouble.

The usual etiquette is to interact with people through bulletins, forums, blogs, or profile comments before moving into private messages. That gives people a chance to recognize you and get a sense of who you are.

People also tend to use each feature a little differently:

- Bulletins are for daily updates, videos, questions, jokes, and casual posts.

- Blogs are usually for longer thoughts, stories, art, tutorials, reviews, or more personal writing.

- Statuses are for sharing what you are feeling or doing in the moment. Some people also use them as a permanent message on their profile.

These are not strict rules, just common communication norms that make it easier to connect with people respectfully. 🥰  (but to each their own)

And, like good citizens, folks will read and interpret this 🥰 

Personally, I add/get added by those who I've interacted with in the Forums and/or blogs and think they're pretty cool and would like to see their blogs/forum posts/bulletins in my feed at the home page. I don't use DMs here at all 😅

...or just keep randomly browsing blogs and/or forums and interact that way. 😅

Randomly adding and then sliding straight into messages just sounds rude, I get enough random adds on Discord already...

i fear i have dmed some people right away after they friend me. usually only if they seem really cool or we have similar interests 😭😭

i feel like i can tell if someone didnt read my profile before sending me a friend request, esp if we dont have ANY similar interests 💔 im not gonna friend someone with zero similar interests 

I'm totally okay with people dming me as soon as they add me, because I am the type of person who gets a little nervous writing out comments all the time. Im just socially awkward. Maybe I should make a web graphic for if it's okay to dm after adding vs not okay to dm after adding. But still people should read people's bios first! I highly agree with that. 

But what bothers me is don't use this as a platform to get follows and friends on other networking sites. I've gotten so many "add me on discord" dms, or people trying to get me to commission art pieces from them 😤 

@Ｃａｒｌｏｓ thanks for sharing! you have a cool profile (:

@Ｃａｒｌｏｓaye, i got ocd too! i just want to let you know (i cannot stress this enough) how cool your profile is. i'd debate that it comes off incredibly personal, like a very vulnerable slice of who you are, with the music and the quotes, it's less like a long list of interests and more what is important enough to be there (because it spoke to you, because it means something and deserved a spot to be there), at least that's what i got from it. i genuinely sat there for a long time just listening to your music and watching your bg, it was really nice:] feel free to send a pm whenever you feel up to it~ 

in my mind, interacting in bulletins and forums feels like talking to coworkers while we're at work, whereas DMs feel like personal text messages - so getting DMs from someone I haven't talked with in bulletins/forums first feels like getting sudden personal texts from a coworker I've never talked with at work before

I also don't assume everyone has every interest on their profile, and I enjoy content from people both similar and dissimilar to me, so if someone seems cool or nice, even if we don't have any obvious shared interests, I'll still add them

I'm pretty short-winded w/ my profile because I hope people will read it all, I keep some extra info in my extended interests blog for people who want more, so sometimes I may add someone because we share an interest I don't list... prime example, I watch a lot of reality TV, so sometimes I add others who do too, but the only TV show I have listed on my own profile is Dark

Well... to be honest, I don't really get, why DMing directly after adding is such an issue. Ok, when all the conversation consists of just "hi" and "wyd", it's utterly pointless. But sometimes I survey some profiles randomly and eventually find one worth an add. And maybe this particular profile has some info to which I may have a question. Am I really obliged to wait, interact etc some time before I'm "allowed" to ask via DM?! Of course I'm intrigued and curious at that very moment and will post my question into the DMs. And those of you who know me will be assured, I won't bother anyone with inappropriate questions...

Btw, when a "hi" pops up in my DMs, I  use to respond with a "moin!", a north German greeting flosk. It often happened, that nothing happened ever after, or it comes to requests for commissions (digital artwork, you already mentioned), that's when conversions end...