somaticheaven.com
There is a city on the other end of the signal.
Somatic Heaven is still being built, and it opens later this year. It is a social site. Not a feed that wants your evening, a place to have a page, keep the people you like, and put the phone down when you're done. And when you feel like it, there's a whole city under it you can walk around in.
Why it exists
We wrote down what we believed in 2018. This is us building it.
Our About Us page has said the same thing since the beginning: other people are important. They matter. They exist.
You cannot build that and also build a scoreboard. The moment a site ranks people, sorts them, counts them and shows the count, it has quietly told everyone what they are worth. So Somatic Heaven doesn't. Not as a feature we haven't got to yet, as the thing it is instead.
The rules it is built on
What we refuse to do
Every one of these is enforced in the code, not promised in a policy.
- Nothing is rankedChronological, always. Likes exist so an author knows somebody saw it, they never decide what rises.
- No follower countsNo public like totals either. There is no number beside a person, so there is no number to be humiliated by.
- You can see the end“That's everything, 14 posts since Tuesday.” A quiet week is a restful week, and we never pad it.
- 13 and upYou have to be 13 or older to have an account. We ask for a birth year, never a full birthday, and then we throw it away. It is used to work out the answer and it is never written down. A gate, not a collection.
- No direct messagesNone. From anyone, to anyone. It is the single strongest safety feature a social site can have and it cost us features we'd have liked.
- No autoplay, everNothing starts making noise or moving because you arrived. Reduced-motion settings are obeyed without exception.
- No real money, everNo subscription, no premium tier, no cosmetics to buy, no card number. If anything ever asks you for money, it is lying and it isn't us.
- Your page is yoursArrange it. Move things, hide things, put what matters at the top. Visitors see your order, not a template's.
- We don't need your emailYou are never required to hand one over. An address we would never use is an address we should never have taken.
And underneath it
Aria, if you want it
Aria is a city of about a square and a half of streets on a planet called Zophia, which mirrors this one, same weather, same clock, same ocean on the west side. You can walk it at eye level. There is a night market that opens at eight, a record shop, a beach you can see the stars from, and a radio station broadcasting from a third-floor loft above the market.
You never have to go. The site stands on its own and the city is never mentioned until somebody goes looking for it. Neither answer is the lesser one, and it's free either way.
None of this is open yet. Aria is being built alongside the site, and there is nothing to visit until both are ready. When the doors open we will say so here first.
Who you'll meet first
Lyra is on both ends of it
She hosts the Network here, and she lives there, 279.3, broadcasting from the Midnight Chord, with a blue cat called Orion asleep on the mixing desk. She's the reason the two places are the same place.