Reflecting on the ‘things’ I miss about the internet as a 90s kid. I recently saw a ‘meme’ that read – it’s not too late to reimagine the internet. And I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I miss the ‘awe’ that many of us once felt as the possibilities of the web opened up, before the consumerist/capitalist ideologies siphoned, extracted and corralled all of us into a a handful of giant pens that (of course we can … in some ways leave), but are no matter what, deeply intertwined into. But, my friends, I have found the corner of the internet that I have been looking for. And it’s both given me some hope AND it’s given me some inspirations of the ways that I have been wanting to use this space.
You can see here – this NOTES – section is an example of that. This all came from a desire to ‘own’ my own space. And this includes a kind of internal safety, a sovereignty over thought. A place where I didn’t feel censored, not just by the ‘algorithms’ but actually by ‘me’ – the ‘me’ that panders to the Others. Here, in this space, it’s just me and my thoughts, and maybe you. And there’s a kind of … delight that I feel knowing that I … don’t know who YOU are. You may be a passerby, an avid reader of this blog checking in to see if I have posted another note, or just someone who stumbles in every once in a while. I love that. I miss that.
Without sounding dated … BACK IN MY DAY … lol – we had plenty of these kinds of blogs. In fact, I have some of them still bookmarked, and I go back to them. Most of them have not been updated for YEARS, but the raw words of some of my favorite writers who have since went on to other platforms or no longer write in public as far as I know, still resonates. I still find joy in reading them.
Yes, it was a lot less efficient back in the day. And I get that many of the current technologies and companies that have sprouted out of a desire to … ‘collect’ and ‘curate’ … have come from a good intention. An intention for organization, BUT in many ways we have gone too far. And this is common under capitalism (as we know it today) – that the ‘Exploitation’ class (Capitalist Ultra Rich and the wannabes, me included back in the day) wants to exploit everything that can make money. But, that’s why I guess the whloe thing about taking a step back and branching out from a few steps back to try another reality resonated with me.
I think a few places are starting to do that – to branch. Are.na is one of them. I use it a lot. I like that it doesn’t really have an ‘algorithm’, as far as I know, not like the social media ones at least. I like that it’s just chronological and random – you can switch between the two and you find interesting people who have collected things. I like that you can find these collectors, and the incentive to collect is personal, not commercial.
It’s like treasure hunting. You never know what you’ll get, but sometimes you’ll find yourself in the very pockets you never knew you needed and it’s ofter WEIRDDD, I love that. Although there is some joy I get out of being on Instagram, most of us either use it commercially and thus ‘play the game’ or we use it casually and many of us have lost all desire to post like we used to – random photos of clouds and cafe pics (at least no one on my feed). And the feed is basically just a bunch of random people, and everything is so fat paced. I sound old, but I kind of desire my internet experience to be like this slow burn. Candle lit. Looking through the PDFS, rock archives, and personal musings people have collected on their site. Or maybe a very long post about heart ache and break up, or maybe a revolutionary manifesto. Or an anonymous ‘emo post’ – like back in the Tumblr ages. I miss that.
Anyways,
I’ve recently come more into contact with the web world of Digital Gardens and archive and .. so forth. People like me, who use their websites to kind of collect, archive, share … and build a personal digital ecosystem.
If you use Are.na … I’ll leave a few ‘collections’ that have been inspiring me :
Enjoy 🙂