I had a "enjoy it while it lasts" mentality when it came to BlueSky. The tipping point finally came for Twitter, and a mass exodus occurred in their favor. The rest of my streamer friends were finally on a platform I kinda-sorta paid attention to. But I didn’t hold my breath.
Sure enough, the nail on the coffin was swift: within days of new users enjoying the new-to-them platform, Jesse Singal, known P.O.S., is not only welcomed on Bluesky– but has ties to Kiwifarms.
(If you have no idea how that’s bad news [I’m envious at your ignorance, but also, where have you been?]: KF is notorious for being a forum full of people that love to doxx, stalk, SWAT, and generally spend way too much of their time obsessing over people they don’t like. They’re most known for harassing transgender individuals.)
And…
People are still being declared overreacting about this?
But what’s been really getting me, is that people are staying anyway. I’m annoyed similarly that it took people this long to GTFO Twitter.
Now, I should hold nuance for those that feel like they don’t have anywhere else to go[1] (Anti-Blackness is global, and permeates the Internet) and for some people, it’s literally their business. And not everyone can just up and delete their account, I guess, or have time/energy/knowhow to just say "fuck it" and roll their own. Or, like, whoever. Whatever.
But…
We gotta do better, y’all.
I’ve come across so many others that articulated way better than I could about how I was feeling about this.
It’s the main idea of why the whole aspect of the "Indie Web," Web 2.0, The-Web-I-Grew-Up-On, has been my Roman Empire for the past year.
There’s alternatives, but unless it’s VC-backed no one really cares. It’s toxic to so many marginalized groups, but that’s where the community is. It harms the most vulnerable and the man behind the wheel is a fucking weasel, but that’s where all your followers are.
Who brings the community?
Who gets sacrificed the instant it’s no longer profitable to exploit their work?
Who suffers because people think Tolerance is still a good idea? (It’s not!)
It’s very likely that I’m salty because, well, I feel this boils down to yet again that trans people just aren’t important as comfort media and convenience. Cis folks wouldn’t stop clutching their Harry Potter books and that fucking game to show the bare minimum of solidarity, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
And yet, this still stings.
It’s not about connections and empathy anymore. It’s all about the numbers, and I’m an unimportant one.
So, like, whatthefuckever. Stay there if you want.
It’s business as usual.
Source: Dumbing of Age
[1] What? You thought I was going to recommend Mastodon? …Well, maybe, but with huge honking caveats and a narrow list of the instances and apps that I recommend. And let’s face it, we absolutely dropped the ball when Twitter first started fucking up (more). So, probably not.
I don’t bring attention to it, but I do have a Facebook account. But by the end of this year, that will be in the past tense.
I’m finally deleting the damn thing.
It had been on thin ice for me for years. I’ve been on much more fun sites, and I’ve been really getting into the whole "Old Web" pre Capitalist Hell we’re in now. And also. Let me count the ways…
accessibility nightmare
bad vibes
…well, that’s about it. "Bad vibes" has its own sublist of things that make up for it, like
""community standards"" that leave actual hate speech up
algo nightmare
ads
is totally evil
But I stayed. Why? Because that’s where most of my friends are. And that’s where the local communities put their events and groups. It’s the only place where I can reach certain family members via Messenger.
And that is finally, finally not enough anymore.
Like WordPress, but worse, FB decided to do more in feeding the LLM slop machine and really come down on how they treat creators and their work. By swiping it to use it however they see fit.
I’ve made my flouncy posts and reached out to people to trade contact info. I’m holding out until Dec 31st, New Year’s Eve, before I cut my losses and delete the account.
I have over 200 friends. I’m blessed to have several handfuls of people that I love and adore and admire– and we have rapport in other places besides Facebook, including offline. I’m lucky to have support networks that meet up for trail, game nights, and social things.
I’m going to miss the groups I’m in.
And the reels my partners and I send back and forth to annoy each other.
And the memes, and silly groups where we all just shitpost (respectfully).
And the groups I have been in for yeeeaaaars that had been there for me when I needed them. There is a ghost of a ghost of a remake of one that I’ve been in for over a decade and we’ve kiki history, babes.
But it’s time to move on, because I have to do better than fucking Facebook.
If I miss things, oh well. I’m on mailing lists, bookmarked websites, and frequent my haunts.
If the one group I’ve been trying to revive ends up tanking because I’m no longer on FB to pester people about it (I’ll be on other platforms, including an old-school forum)… well, can’t say I didn’t try.
(BTW, tangent, communities etc– please have your web presence be somewhere else besides Facebook. At the very least have different options. Instagram does not fucking count. And neither does Twitter.)
And for those that never reached out… I don’t think I’ll be missed. And if I am, hopefully we’ve people and hobbies in common that we’ll eventually cross paths again. Otherwise… yo. You had time to make me a priority, and by New Year’s Day you’ll be out of it.
I am only going to pivot and say a few things that are now, more important than ever. And by saying, I’ll probably just end up posting links. My wordsmithing isn’t great at the moment, but I’ve been collecting links.
The Fediverse is a viable option. It may be the only option.
SpaceHey will be one of the few exceptions for me going forward, because at least there’s no algorithm screwing with things. I’ll revisit my thoughts on [that] platform occasionally.
Web3.0, as we call it colloquially, is frankly terrible. No to generative AI, Crypto, NFTs, and so on. And did I mention algorithms already
But with one huge caveat, I cannot stress this enough: Friends don’t let friends sign up for any ol’ Mastodon instance. And before you join any instance, be sure to look into them carefully. I have a handful of recommendations, if anyone is curious; these were spaces I have personally seen actually caring for their communities.
Every other app is setup to be quick, simple, and easy. But Mastodon requires, and I really mean it, requires that you investigate the server you’re looking into joining. It’s like we’re back in the 90s, and your avenue for social interaction online is internet forums, and you definitely don’t want to join a forum full of people with interests you don’t enjoy.
Regardless, keep an eye on the hashtag Fediblock and The Bad Space project to keep yourself and your communities safer. https://thebad.space/.
If you have the time, learn to build.
Or at least be aware of alternatives other than the corporate social media sites, networks, and programs. For starters:
There are cheap and even free options out there if you’re on a tight budget. The aformentioned 32bit Cafe link has a huge list of options, and even Reddit is helpful here: https://www.reddit.com/r/webhosting/wiki/pickingahost/ .
I’m currently on NekoWeb, myself, and I’ve heard good things about NearlyFreeSpeech.Net and Lexi’s Hosting.
If you’re starting up a service, considering hosting, or whatever else, be mindful of the Five Eyes (“FVEY”) surveillance alliance. Encrypt your data (end-to-end and on your devices), use VPNs, minimize your data collected, don’t be too open in public online spheres.
As the WordPress environment is set aflame by one guy throwing a tantrum and lawyers sending each other strongly worded leaflets, I’m just sitting here glad that I made the switch to ClassicPress months ago. And, not for the first time, I noticed a trend in my social media restructuring: when it isn’t FOSS or decentalised, the sites I’m now most active on is a fork or reconstruction of what I grew up with.
While NekoWeb is admittedly a stretch (free hosting never went out of style), I have listed it because of how nostalgic it has made me. It’s what I keep repeating: the Old Web and how people used to build and decorate their online spaces. However, two services are forked from earlier concepts of their modern-day counterparts:
2018: WordPress 5.0 introduced the Block system
Dreamwidth forked from LJ as early as 2009
And SpaceHey is basically resurrected MySpace from the early 2000s or so… I was never on that platform proper pre-botched migration (it got better). It’s been interesting to see how it was, right now… and not as a kid, but an adult that does their own taxes and everything. I would’ve loved MySpace, especially for the hack to inject CSS. And I’m liking it now as an alternative to Facebook.
I may have been a little too excited in firing off a hasty fangirl-y email to an address that probably isn’t even monitored anymore, but I was so happy that I found the site I’ve been alluding to since college. All I had to do, all this time, was to browse my old middle-and-high school files for a certain animation with a certain username on it.
Blink and you miss it: http:// members. aol. com/ chibiusa97.(1) The pieces fell into place from there. So I sent an email. …Well, less polished and rushed than what you see here, perhaps, but the sentiment is the same.
Hello,
As I tend to do as Web 3.0 breathes down our necks, I sit back and reminisce about The Old Web… when everyone built their own little piece. I remember your website dedicated to Chibi Usa, who was also my favorite Sailor Scout. You had one of my favorite web pages in the late 90s, so I was always a little saddened that I could never remember the URL or who you were.
So, imagine my delight when I came across one of your old .ani files in my archives! A quick search of your username later and I navigated to your CS100 assignment. It’s still up, after all these decades. Coming across sites like that is like peering back into time.
The Internet is/was a very cool place, and I’m still amazed at how information is communicated on this medium, and how it has grown.
And how sites have inspired me, such as yours.
So I want to say, thank you. As a kid in 1997 browsing the Web in middle school Computer Club, to the almost-40 adult who still has a passion for this sort of thing. I hope you’re still in it, enjoying anime, and I hope this email reaches you well.
Take care,
“me”
I propose a toast for ChibiUsa97, and all the ChibiUsa97s still floating around, coding and enjoying what they love.
(1) That link no longer works, natch. However, you can view the page on the Wayback Machine. That hyperlink points to the version I’m most familiar with, but do slide around the timeline and see how it changed over the years!
probably FFX-2 (but most definitely Unlimited SaGa)
Because it didn’t need all the hate I gave it. I will still argue that playing X-2 right after X can give you mood whiplash, but that didn’t deserve me writing paragraphs about how much it sucked. i’d do anything to find the bullshit i wrote so i can tear it to shreds It did carry the same score as Xenosaga, at one point, so I eventually did give it another go.
It’s fun! But don’t play it without a guide. Ask me how I know.
Unlimited SaGa was gorgeous and it’s one of my favorite games now. Other than presentation, I can’t quite remember why I dogged on it so much. That was probably the only reason. And that’s a damn shame. Its soundtrack did end up being one of my absolute I’ll-take-it-with-me-on-a-deserted-island albums.
Mary Sues
This is one of those things where I look back on and criiiiinge. You could say it was all about the sanctity of writing all you want, but if you look at the demographic of people that wrote self-inserts with sparkly eyes constantly stealing the limelight, something becomes apparent.
It was thinly-veiled an excuse to shit on creative teenage girls. (In my defense, I was also a teenage girl. At least I wasn’t a man in my 20s or 30s hatin’ on them. That’s fucking weird.) It’s still used today, but much less prevalent– and, if you ask the Old Heads, completely incorrectly. Mary Sues had, more or less, this sort of (highly subjective) criteria:
an OC (Original Character) author-insert
impossibly perfect (in looks and/or ability, or both)
accompanined by purple prose (“bad writing”)
terrible characterization (“more bad writing”)
an OOC (out-of-character) magnet for the canon cast
love interest to a canon character(s)
hasn’t done anything to earn in-story praise, credibility, attention, love…
And nowadays there are a few nuanced takes, such as this one on the PPC Wiki (or, "that thing where you spork stuff I guess"; please, i don’t want to further go into this where are you taking me):
Mary Sue is shallow: she cares only about herself and achieving her own goals. She is uninteresting, because she has no real conflict. Neither is she well-crafted, but characterized almost exclusively by how she looks, or how much her past sucks, or how good she is with her skill of choice. Worst of all, she warps or shoves aside everything we love about the canon and its people in order to put herself forward. Mary Sue has no respect for the work into which she intrudes. “Mary Sue” at PPC Wiki
Now I’ve noticed it’s been thrown around as code for "this female character is too cool, and I’m jealous actually." Straight up misogyny (and when it applies, misogynoir). The most recent example of this particular type of "Canon Sue" is Rey from the Star Wars franchise. Which, as Lily Orchard pointed out, was ironic considering Rey’s characterization suffered and became a "Mary Sue" in order to appeal to the very same people complaining about her (source). Star Wars fans really hate themselves.
There was a website called "Mary Sue Dolls" where someone did those little pixelized representations of, well, people’s Mary Sue characters. I loved flipping through them and seeing how elaborate they could get. I haven’t been able to find an archive, but I faintly remember the last years of that domain. It was still up, but with an apology on the only page.
But yeah. Let fanfic writers have fun. Let girls have fun, ffs.
If you hate bad writing and characterization, just fucking say that.
If you still don’t know WTF I’m talking about, or just want to know more, Izzzyzzz‘s video is pretty succinct.
Kelly, of “Shoes” fame
In college I was like "ew what is this vapid garageband bullshit." Fortunately, that pretentious shit only lasted a couple of months, if not days. Especially when I noticed Kelly’s songs were helping my then-girlfriend get through a tough time. If people love and take strength from something, could it really be that bad? Honestly, if you can create art with any tools at your disposal, it’s still freakin’ art.
Also, I was sold once I heard "Txt Msg Brkup." That was a banger.
Final Fantasy VII Remake (and so on)
I’m a little ashamed to admit this: when an actual Remake for Final Fantasy VII became reality– not a hoax or tech demo!– I was annoyed. Maybe even… livid. I took the announcement as a personal affront and cynical cash grab. You name it, I said it. I wasn’t happy that they were messing with my baby.
…Yes, it’s actually their baby, but I didn’t have to be happy about it, damn it!
And yet, I followed it’s development up to launch from the corner of my eye. I was still intrigued and curious. The more I read, the more I softened up the the reality of the thing, and eventually I made my peace with it. I wished I could have been more charitable from the start, regardless of what it’d become. The original will still be there for me to enjoy, after all.
Also, it brought us this:
CHERITH!!! Mod by Crandifff.
How about some engagement?
So– what stuff did you hate, but ended up loving– or at the very least, tolerating? Leave a comment and I’ll eventually drag it out of the comment filters! :3
I grew up in the 90s, so computers were an up-and-coming thing before they became a staple in all of our lives.
We had an Apple with Oregon Trail in our portable 5th Grade classroom, but I couldn’t really do anything on it. You put in the floppy disk and called it a day. There were other computers, yeah, but you couldn’t leave the fenced-in areas of educational games. 7th grade was when I finally felt like I could get my hands dirty on how things not only worked, but how things could be created. We covered different office programs and their files, databases, and light networking.
The recreational vibe of Computer Club, however, was where I was most comfortable. While I applied what I learned to fun middle-schooling projects (I really enjoyed making PowerPoint presentations), I surfed the Internet. A lot. I spent those weekly Wednesday afternoons putting search queries in Yahooligans! and coming across forums, shrines, and personal sites.
It all clicked in High School. The class programmed in QBASIC before lesson plans for FrontPage became available, and as a self-proclaimed Internet Denzien I pivoted to that. I was familiar with Web pages, but it wasn’t until here that I realized I could build. I fell in love with HTMLing and building Web sites of my own.
I also got into blogging around this time, too– teens love self-expression, and back in the day we were used FreeNetDiary, Xanga, and the highly-coveted Livejournal (way back when, you needed an invite from an existing user). I settled on BlogDrive for my first blog, the URL referencing Cloud Strife.
I also had someone’s fan page of Chibi Usa always bookmarked, and I was able to see it evolve over the years (until I lost the link). I thought to myself, “I want to put information out there, and I want to do it with style.” It has since morphed into an emphasis on accessibility and readability.
I still love blogging, and I still love manipulating content with color theory and best practices to display different media types, for everyone.
And what now? I am nostalgic from when The Internet seemed more fun, less cookie-cutter and corporate.
I’m the embodiment of this old vine: I am COMPLETELY GIVING UP.
It’s official. I’m capital D Done with online dating.
Sure, I’ve reduced my apps, but I was still feeling frustrated and convinced that I fucking suck. And on top of that, there’s dealing with the usual pitfalls of online dating like People (Mostly Men) Not Reading My Profile, One-Word Convos, and Weirdos in the Inbox– especially the ones that can’t seem to get my pronouns right. And then there’s all the things outside of my control like algorithms and paywalls.
I know it ain’t me… Mostly. I’m not perfect. Shit, maybe it is. I’m convinced that I’m not just cut out for online dating. Maybe I don’t have the extroverted personality for it. Maybe I am hideous and off-putting. The back of my brain is going what’s wrong with me?! Am I too something, and/or not enough something else?
It’s too fucking much.
It’s a gut punch when you have a great rapport with someone, and they just… stop. Out of all my dates and conversations, only one person had the decency to just send a text stating that she wasn’t feeling it. Everyone else never got back to me.
I get Ghosted.
The latest person to do so was someone I’ve been seeing for half a year. And it hurts extra because we bonded over our mutual dislike for getting ghosted on– and I still got done like that anyway. No closure, no reason, nothing.
Few things feel shittier than that. Something must be wrong with me. And that’s when I decided to throw in the towel.
And you know the wild thing about this? I’ve actually had successful dates. And each one was with a person who I was already interacting with in meatspace. So, fuck it: I’ll just stick to doin’ it Old School. My introverted socially anxious homebody ass will stumble through and figure it out. And if it is "just me"? Then I’ll work on myself. I should be doing that regardless.
For real.
I mean it.
I am done with the dating apps.
…
Until I’m bored. OKCupid still has all those fucking questions I haven’t answered.
While the timeline I had in mind would be over the span of two months, tops, I managed to do this in two days. It helped that I’ve had ClassicPress in a pinned tab for quite some time now, and buying the domain name was the easy part. Hosting was where I dragged my feet, but it was quickly resolved by how easy it was for me to fall back into the server maintenence groove. But still, at first I was nervous. I don’t have the budget to have a professional on retainer, so it would have to be a DIY operation– and while I’ve managed Linux servers in the past, it was quite some time ago and I felt quite rusty. And in addition to the rust, I am also occasionally lazy. And impatient. I wanted my site moved now!
I settled on DigitalOcean. It came highly recommended when I first asked around for hosting solutions, with the caveat that it wasn’t exactly casual-friendly. "I’m just going to try it out, poke around it, shake the cobwebs off my knowledge" I thought to myself. I was also prepared to get my hands a little dirty if it came to that. Besides, there was this handy tool that set up the headache-inducing environment for me, brought to my attention from browsing ClassicPress Forums. So that certainly helped!
Like many things, it was like riding a bike. Once the wheels started turning, I remembered a lot more than I thought I would. I had to do some updates, set up ClassicPress, and I was done! Before I knew it, I was settling right in nicely as I customized, secured, and broke things (the deleted DNS records got better– yay for restore buttons!).
This feels like… wearing a beloved blanket. I didn’t want to move to a whole different blogging platform, after all. I’m a creature that enjoys the familiar and the nostalgic, and right now as I type this I’m transported back to 2005. During Web Developing class everyone was setting up their WordPress accounts for the first time, and I thought it pretty magical. Frankly, it still is. And now, I can develop my own theme. Since I don’t have to pay extra to do so, I don’t really have an excuse now. Besides time, anyway.
So, hello again! We’re back on schedule.
I can only wish my IRL move in the upcoming months will be as smooth as this was.
I am absolutely running that joke into the ground.
Prompt: Write about your first computer.
Bloganuary is over, but I couldn’t resist this prompt!
My dad bought an AST Advantage! computer[1] from a coworker and we settled it on the desk in my bedroom. We were pretty excited, both of us being electronic gadget nerds in our own ways: I was into everything computers, while my dad’s forte was audio and video setups. We were both content in a RadioShack, back in the day.
It was a beige thing with a horizontal tower (vertical wasn’t all the rage yet) and came with CRT monitor, keyboard, mouse, a desk microphone, a manual, and a whole sleeve of CD software (s/o to Encarta, always coming in clutch when I needed additional research for school essays). The speakers were passable, nothing to write home about.
It was running Windows 95. A solid operating system– a opinion I hold to this day– but it felt a little dated compared to the Win98 (or 2000?) installed on computers elsewhere. But, that was no biggie. It also lacked adequate Internet access for its modem wasn’t quite up to snuff, if I recall correctly. But, still, it was pretty cool. When it wasn’t a word processor, it played music and we played a few MS-DOS games on it.
The Advantage! stayed in my room. From what I remember, the computer became my domain and thus, unofficially tasked with taking care of the thing. That included, in my assumption, that I was to do upkeep and remove any unnecessary files or programs. I took it pretty seriously.
From the Windows 95 desktop I dragged photos and irrelevant documents from Explorer to the recycling bin. You can guess where this is going. No, I did not delete the System32 folder, but I did something just as hilarious:
I deleted desktop.exe.
In my defense, I made sure to at least open programs before I made my decision to chuck ’em. And this particular executable was the AST-branded desktop environment with a distinct Windows 3.1 flavor. I thought it was safe to get rid of, because we already had a desktop environment– and a modern one, to boot! I thought I was safe.
The instant I banished it to the Bin, I got an error message. You were instructed to reboot the computer in hopes of the OS finding desktop.exe again. But it was in the Bin, untouchable, so you were effectively boot looped.
I panicked. Not because I’d get in trouble (and I probably did), but because we didn’t have the install discs for the operating system! So there was no way for me to fix it until we got them. A few weeks later I was able to repair the damage, and got a surprise. The install discs were for Windows 3.1! The Windows 95 install turned out to be a delicate patch job that I wrecked in my error.
But hey, the computer was usable again! So I got on with it with no complaint. I screwed up, after all. Armed with the Flatten-and-Rebuild option, I got to learning and making more mistakes. I hadn’t done any blunders of that magnitude since, but I kept those discs close!
I became real familiar with using the ALT key to access menu items– especially ALT + SPACE, for when a window got nudged off-screen and I could not see it. That happened a lot in 3.1, at least in my use case. I learned how Batch files did their thing and customized a whole startup routine pointing to different programs and Windows proper– including an NES emulator to play Mega Man II. I played with its audio programs, listening to my Final Fantasy MIDIs when I wasn’t creating silly audio skits. Imagine my delight when I saw it could’ve been used as an answering machine and phone! Stones.Exe was my favorite time-waster, when we weren’t playing MS-DOS games. And lastly: it was just pretty fascinating to interact with That Older OS, to see how far along its come.
Common objects I’ve ferreted to and from home via floppy discs were
Eventually, we did get our Technically-Second computer: A Gateway with Windows Millennial Edition. It was the family computer, chilling in my parent’s bedroom before it was moved to the corner of the dining room. We loved ourselves some Bejeweled, 3D Pinball Space Cadet, and That Game Where You Shoot Dial-Up Modems (was free with our DSL provider).
I thoroughly enjoyed browsing the Internet, sending emails, browsing GameFAQs, and putting together my fansites for Chrono Cross and Kingdom Hearts. I downloaded mp3s from OverClocked Remix— it took twenty minutes for one file, so I typically busied myself with something else– and the entire time I’d hope no one would call.
There was also this program that snitched on everything you did on the computer. Of course, it was installed! I was called out for the habit of deleting my browsing history (because they could see it anyway), but I just shrugged. I wasn’t doing anything out of line and to be frank, the real saucy stuff was regulated to the library computers, out of their reach. This Nanny program promptly disappeared when I exploited WinME’s login bug, snooped, and found a certain folder with certain images not under my account. That deeply amused me.
We had a year free of for Norton, when they were still reliable. All of us clicked on our fair share of dodgy sites (and yes, we used Limewire), and were super concerned with the worms and viruses. When Sasser was making the rounds I couldn’t help but feel smug– it didn’t target WinME systems (but it did get the last laugh when I finally upgraded to XP without reformatting– another lesson learned).
The era of Family Computers was a pretty special time. There was nothing like it. It was communal, whether we crowded around the screen or we took turns doing Important Things. We burned CDs, used the scanner, printed out photos, and bookmarked cool things for us to peruse. I have a family photo of all of us at the table, taken by our first digital camera, processed on our first computer, and printed out on our first printer.
I kept the AST for a few years, and eventually inherited the Gateway when it was usurped from the Family Computer crown. After that, I upgraded to a HP Media Center Edition for school (I needed all the horsepower for Photoshop and video editing– the TV watching was a bonus). And beyond that, I’ve had my run-ins with more HPs, Acers, and Dells.
But the AST Advantage! was first, and I’ll fondly look back on it always.
