Sometimes social media can be a major drag, but other times, there are channels, accounts, and creative collections that utterly make my day.
So I asked the SBTB crew for recommendations, and the answers added 7683% more delight to my scroll time!
NB: did the IG and other embeds work consistently? Nope, sure didn’t. Do I know why? Nope. So I’ve provided alternate images from each account. Please click through to see the accounts and other images on their respective sites!
I guessed Amanda’s right away, from mentions on prior podcasts:
Amanda, is Nonbinary Frog your pick?
Amanda: Yes!
Tara: Mine is definitely Gender of the Day
Today's gender is a delightful roomba.
— gender of the day (@genderoftheday) September 27, 2021
Elyse: This Instagram account’s aesthetic calls to my witchy soul:
Click to view on InstagramShana: Melissa Dilkes Pateras on TikTok is a soothing corner of domestic competence. Watching her renovate or clean something always cheers me up.
Oh, here’s a great example: folding baby clothes, looking like a romance heroine.
Catherine: Ursula Vernon on Twitter (@UrsulaV). Wonderful combination of weird anecdotes, clever and funny one-liners and kitten photos.
Ellen: @round.boys on Instagram! 100% round animal content
Amanda: YES ROUND BOYSSS
What about you? What one (ONE) social media account do you know will always lift your day a little? You can only pick one! So please, tell us your absolute top favorite! And cheers to happy, delightful social media scrolling for everyone.
Rachel Hawkins’s twitter. I don’t even have a twitter account but I keep hers bookmarked and read it like a blog. Book recs, relatable funny slices of life, pop culture, history, cooking, cute cats. https://twitter.com/LadyHawkins/status/1443703235752124417?s=20
SBTB podcast did an interview with her a couple years ago, in which she talked about her #sexyHistory threads. So good.
The account I search out just for a hit of pure joy is Norbert’s, a 3-pound rescue therapy dog.
https://twitter.com/NorbertDog/status/1438304253219467268
The NASA Perseverance Rover Twitter account makes my day. My son and I read every new update and whoever runs the account does a good job with the anthropomorphic parts of the tweets. We also liked Google’s ad starring Perseverance.
https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere?t=FGMIunOBk8CN_xBONXyGyA&s=09
The Orkney library Twitter account. There’s a reason there are way more people following that account than there are inhabitants in Orkney. Between the puns, the archival content, the balls, and Booky McBookface, they’re just delightful.
https://twitter.com/orkneylibrary
There’s knitting too, if you’re not yet convinced.
@Escapeologist, you beat me to it with Rachel Hawkins’s Twitter. Early in 2019, I was grieving the loss of my twenty-year-old cat. One evening, I was idly looking online for cat content, and found @LadyHawkins. Her Sexy History thread about Joan of Kent made me laugh and brought me genuine joy. I’ve been a fan ever since.
Twitter’s Classical Studies Memes for Hellenistic Teens is a must for any history or mythology nerd.
Foltbolt on Insta — color and beauty and inspiration.
The MERL on Twitter — Museum of English Rural Life. Hilarious.
Bodega Cats on Twitter — cats in bodegas (of course!)
THIS CAT IS PHOTOSHOPPED on Facebook — people photoshop members’ cats into all sorts of things. Utterly silly.
Fleece to Fashion on Twitter — from the textile researchers at Glasgow U
https://twitter.com/kapebeansies does cute, round illustrations inspired by (mostly) cat photos.
I use my “likes” for things I actually like (because they’re cool, pretty, funny, whatever) rather than a form of social currency, so I have a supply of reliably happy content to scroll through on the hellsite.
The lovely, lovely Mr. Gurdeep Pandher of Yukon @GurdeepPandher, who speads joy and positivity, one bhangra at a time.
Pixel and Sophie, Iammoshow, Gladys the Opossum, Gilbert the Opossum, Sesame the Opossum, and Dinosaurs Against Christians Against Dinosaurs – all on Facebook. Cat, opossum, and science-related humor.
Pinsent Tailoring and Vintage Egyptologist, and the feeds from pretty much any zoo or aquarium on Insta.
Twins the New Trend on YouTube
@thehomosapienexperience, @phillychinchilly, @gregisms, @iammoshow, @roverthecat, @wawdance, @honestteachervibes, @lilnasx, @steeze365daily, and many assorted crafttoks, and I second @melissadilkespateras,
Dogs. specifically, Blair Braverman’s Twitter, with tales of her amazing sled dogs, and the Golden Ratio, the most glorious group of (mostly) rescued Golden Retrievers on the face of this tiny planet.
The Latest Kate! I follow her on Facebook and get daily emails of cute cartoon animals with uplifting sayings next to them.
The animal videos from Oregon Zoo on Facebook, most of all Filbert the beaver – called the “Branch Manager”, Moshu the little red panda and otters going nuts over a tub of ice cubes.
We Rate Dogs (@dog_rates) and its partner (skirting the rule of one just a little) Thoughts of Dog (@dog_feelings) on Twitter. They’ve made my day more than once and do so much good for others.
Dr Eleanor Janega @GoingMedieval is a professor of medieval history with funny and interesting content including talking about misconceptions around how sex was viewed, how there is no such thing as “the dark ages” and, she assures you, people absolutely bathed. She also has a blog which is great, and regularly guests in various podcasts. Highly recommend.
@Darlynne – those were EXACTLY my choices too! I don’t even have a Twitter account (or any social media accounts for that matter), but I search out Thoughts of Dog and We Rate Dogs every so often for a little joy.
@buitengebieden_ on Twitter and Instagram
Only positive, uplifting posts. Always has something to make me smile or laugh.
Just a temporary follow, but I’ve been enjoying a thread on an engineering forum where an engineer living in the Canary Islands is giving updates on the volcanic eruption going on there now which is spectacular (lava fountains!) and disastrous (400 houses lost so far is just the beginning). Commentary on life on small steep islands included. If you like social media chat to be nerdy with numbers and calculations, it’s here
@SketchesbyBoze on Twitter. As advertised: quality tweets for the old soul • fairy-tales, beauty, wholesome whimsy
So hard to pick just one! I follow a bunch of cats, capybaras, art, etc on Twitter and a bunch of food and home design stuff on IG. As it’s a bit more unique, I’ll offer up @joshlipnik (Midwest Modern) on Twitter, which is all architecture of the Midwest, both big cities and small towns, residential and commercial.
For those of you also on a faith journey – and even if you’re not – I can’t recommend RevDaniel highly enough. He’s a gay married Anglican priest who tweets about faith, sexuality, politics, royalty, and how to be decent in the world. Also his wonderful floofy dog named Chester. He’s the wisest snarky person – or the snarkiest wise person – I’ve come across. https://twitter.com/RevDaniel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
I can’t see that anyone has mentioned SparkNotes yet, which is absolutely amazing both on Twitter and Instagram (I’m too old to figure out things like Snapchat and TikTok). I absolutely love all of their content: https://twitter.com/SparkNotes
I love Tim Cotton’s posts on Bangor Maine Police Department’s Facebook page.
On Twitter:
@OregonZoo oh those munching beavers.
@TheMERL, Museum of English Rural Life. And just about every museum, everywhere.
@thecatreviewer yes, they do what they say. They encourage reviews of random cats.
@PeterBrathwaite opera singer, writer, broadcaster, whose Black portraiture series for the Getty Art Museum challenge is now being made into a book
@silverpebble Emma Mitchell, author, journalist, mental health and brain chemistry advocate, has a very nice dog
I’m mostly on Instagram for the animals, but since zooborns is a topic rather than an account, I’ll mention The Black Forager. She has tons of energy as she finds wild foods in urban settings and discusses the history of food from a racial perspective.
Thank you @Eliza for the RevDaniel link. This morning, for a bit, it *is* well with my soul.
My most favorite thing on the internet right now is Bitchy French on Tiktok. It’s @jacktreio ‘Zat French Guy”. It makes me happy. He teaches us how to be sarcastic in French.
Hayley Morris’ bits on TikTok are hilarious.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8J9qgfx/
https://instagram.com/henrythecoloradodog?utm_medium=copy_link
Late to the party here, but if you scroll all the way down to my comment, go check out Henry the Colorado Dog. It’s actually Henry and his cat friend Baloo snuggling & camping their way through the great outdoors. It makes me pause & say “ahhh” every time.