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Heyo
Today is 11.08.2024
I have been watching a lot of youtube videos and reading a tiny little bit about the internet recently. TLDR – BIG corporation bad, independent good.
Actually, there are a lot of thoughts in my head as I’m writing this and I’m feeling a bit nauseous. It’s because of my meds. So I’m writing this, to try and make sense of my scattered thoughts and maybe share them with someone.
The internet can be super fun. The feeling I get when I am able to learn a completely new skill from scratch for free on the web is unmatched. I was able to learn drawing, calligraphy, knitting and now web design so far, as well as others and probably much more to come.
Or when I see an amazing fanart, and I feel overwhelmed with joy and awe for the love, skill, passion and time that went into it. Every time I see a lovingly made Hatsune Miku imageI melt a little bit. I’m serious. I love her so much and seeing someone else also express such love is so special.
I also love the Internet when I can learn about perspectives different than my own, get exposed to interesting ideas, or get confused about something and discover a whole new rabbit hole I want to know all about. Lots of what I consider now to be my core values I first learned about online.
But the internet also sucks a lot. I’m thinking about the ugliness of hate, bigotry, trolling, ragebait, etc. I think about everything tabout AI, NFTs and crypto, and other tech stuff I disagree with and yet being forced on me. I think about how I don’t really choose what I consume on my own, but let algorithms feed my instead. I think about everything online riddled with ads.
All my most used social media spaces – youtube, instagram, facebook – all have things I like but are overrun with issues that make my experience online hugely negative.
So, a lot of what I’ve been thinking and learning about in the recent times is the idea of indie web. A vision of the internet that is for the people, not companies. Websites, run, created by people like me, about things they care about. Communities that actually make feel connected to others and heard. Uninterrupted experience, free of intrusive ads and things I don’t care about. Where I decide what I consume.
I learned of neocities, of RSS feeds. I explored people sharing their experiences of quitting the modern mobile phone, in favour of things like mp3 players and digicams. I started to care again about actually owning things, my time, and my attention.
It’s a return to the past mostly. It seems like it. A lot of these ideas are inspired by the early 00s and 90s.
It’s incredibly exciting. It’s a new world for me, and it seems so, so full of potential. I can’t wait to see where this leads me.
-fly