It’s very awesome to see people become so good at the game that they beat it in record time. They have an intimate knowledge of not only how the game itself works, but the quirks and nuances of not only the format the game is in, but also the system the game is played on. It can get pretty technical when you think beyond speed, though that alone is still pretty impressive. I personally enjoy the runs where glitches are exploited and the game is utterly broken– that takes time and dedication.
When a speedrun tournament is happening, I block off my evenings and not move from the couch. The outside world ceases to exist. I’d have a spread of finger food, hookah, drinks, and other friends that enjoy video game content (but if it’s just me, the spread is much smaller). I cheer on my favorites, jump up when a hard trick is pulled off, and you know I’m shouting when someone breaks a world record! I laugh, I cry, I wish I wasn’t hand-eye-coordination impaired.
Bloganuary Prompt: In what ways do you communicate online?
Largely text-based, with the occasional voice memo if I’m not streaming.
I assume people are only interested in the big guys, the Web 3.0 jockeys. And the only one I reliably use is Discord. The mention of Facebook Messenger is strictly obligatory: I’ve family that can’t (or wont?) use anything else.
I’ll also say, sporadically. I’ve slowed down, considerably, since I reevaluated my social media consumption last year.
The platforms and protocols I do use seem slower in comparison to, say, Twitter– especially if they’re reminiscent (or artifacts) of the algorithm-free Old Internet, like Mastodon or XMPP. Forums are just snail mail compared to anything else… and that’s exactly why I prefer them these days.
I do still use email, just not nearly as much as I did a decade ago. It’s still good for long-form conversations and to talk shop (when it’s not a receptacle for coupons and news).
I’ve had not much to blog about, other than the vague yearning to fill up a page with little old-school gifs and stamps. I’ve also been craving to create and I’ve made good on that craving, beyond poetry. There’s VTubing and taking immense joy in noodling about with the lore. I’m finally kicking off two fanfiction ideas that have been in the back of my mind for years. I may even get into pixel art. And at the same time, this blog has been quiet. I’m (trying) not to stress (too much) about it. Sometimes things happen on other platforms, sometimes privately, sometimes in progress, and sometimes things are just still.
It’s an account I’ve had since high school, if you can believe that. It’s pretty neat to come across things that are over two decades old, still floating around. I guess that’s true for anything posted on the internet; it’s just a matter of if you can even access it. (The more embarrassing pieces are very well Lost Media. So the hope goes.)
On top of this discovery, I’ve been feeling pretty nostalgic lately. A recent trip to Hot Topic had me obtain a few tees:
Linkin Park’s Meteora 20th anniversary edition Meteora was my go-to album just starting college and figuring my shit out. I still bump to it when I’m feeling particularly emotional. My girlfriend has seen me drunkenly sing and mosh along to the entire album, once. I destroyed all video evidence but if it pops up on MySpace I wouldn’t be particularly mad about it.
a panel from a Junji Ito manga Tomie, specifically. That was the first horror movie series that I really got into, thanks to the local video rental store that had a lot of different stuff on its shelves.
The Sonic the Hedgehog tee does not count; it was not Archie!Sonic. And the round belly 90s Sonic did not have any in stock in my size.
Cue pondering my current draw to the things I grew up on: the usual. It’s fun. “I know that thing!” It reminds me of happier times when the world didn’t seem to suck so much. Maybe, even something profound on how history marches on but at the same time, falls back. It’s comforting, like the childhood blanket lovingly folded up in the closet– except it’s unfolded on my bed.
“This was something I loved as a kid, and is still important to me, and even a codifier to who I am today.”
Revisiting stuff reminds me of my mindset, and it’s wild to compare/contrast the then/now. “Faint” is still a personal favorite, but at least I have a support network that does not make me feel like that (those work emails, on the other hand…). And as I start sliding back into my Goth phase, maybe I’ll be creepier this time around. I’m certainly building up the makeup arsenal to pull it off.
The current Sonic comic run is okay. I’m enjoying it. I miss Princess Sally.
I should probably say something about The Old Internet. A lot of people have said it better already, and I will certainly link to some of ’em later. I miss it, and I don’t mean in the Eternal September sense– that’s some cynical elitist bullshit. What I mean is, an Internet before things became about content, content, content, c o n t e n t in front of as many people as possible using the most intrusive algos. Wait– I have content? Yeah, but that’s a technicality. And you don’t see me shoving it in your face and I’m not trying to sell you something. I’m just hanging out over here.
And here’s the kicker:
The Old Internet never left. Some of it is abandoned and/or archived, but that is the nature of most things. When there isn’t a revamp, revival, or a “classic” spinoff– it’s here, continuing, slowed down perhaps but hasn’t stopped. Pretty obvious, if you look beyond the big names. You know the ones. They usually have apps, maybe a Material theme, and are just geared to enrage you unless you did some tweaks. And install an adblock.
It feels like everyone is now choosing its side. You can’t stay in the middle anymore. You are either dedicating all your CPU cycles to run JavaScript tracking you or walking away from the big monopolies. You are either being paid to build huge advertising billboards on top of yet another framework or you are handcrafting HTML.
Maybe the web is not dying. Maybe the web is only splitting itself in two.
I’m also in danger of repeating myself. In short, the dusting off of old habits and a more engaged involvement of my media consumption. And, how I spend time online. (Some updates: Pocket was reinstalled for the edge cases of articles I didn’t come across in RSS. Tildes ultimately won out and kbin gets a visit when I want a TLDR news cycle and the urge to be snarky.)
I’ve talked about the so-called growing pains of moving to Mastodon, and everyone’s talked to death about the egomaniac now at the Twitter wheel. So let’s talk about Reddit.
A decade or so ago, I used Digg when Digg was good. I liked keeping in touch with the news and other interests, and occasionally contributing to a discussion with a comment. But then they shot themself in the foot and drove most of its users to Reddit, self included, and it fell into punch line and cautionary tale. And now, Reddit is getting greedy. “Digg-ing its own grave,” a lot of people are saying, because we’ve seen this before.
On top of wanting more ads in front of your eyeballs and nuking NSFW outside of their official app/site, they’ve jacked up the API pricing so much that it’ll effectively kill the 3rd party apps and tools some users depend on. In protest people have been leaving for other platforms, scheduling blackouts, and dragging Reddit in the media. They’ve done some boneheaded moves before, but that API brouhaha appears to be the last straw for a lot of people– self included. History really is repeating itself.
The changes take effect on July 1st, but then I thought– why wait? So I deleted the app.
I’ve taken this opportunity to step back and reconsider how I’ve been consuming media.
I realized how guilty I was of using Reddit as a portal for all my news, entertainment, and mindless doomscrolling (especially the latter). Like many others I used third party apps and uBlock Origin to make it usable. And it was… a timesink. A good one, if only in the sense that it was something to read when I was too lazy to do other things. “Good” in other aspects is highly debatable. In my case, I certainly wasn’t contributing positively to most threads; when I wasn’t lurking it was to say something pithy or to insult a jackass. Whether that was due to Reddit’s changing atmosphere or my growing jerkassness, that remains to be seen. (Probably both, to be honest). Good timesink or no, I could have been reading literally anything else instead of threads upon threads of whatever.
So I went further. Next on the chopping block was Pocket. While it was great for squirreling away articles and stories, I just haven’t used it in years– things now are pinned, “Read Later” in my RSS readers, clipped to Evernotes. (And speaking of that, I switched from Evernote to Joplin for more functionality in my free tier account.) My final switch was from Feedly to Feeder (dot co); I didn’t need that AI stuff and I really hated how basic the functionality of pulling RSS data from most websites was behind a paywall. To differentiate, I don’t mean the custom build choose-elements-to-pull kind– Feeder has that paywalled too. But Feeder has a much better time just pulling what I need, with the exception of the really weirdly-formatted sites.
But what about a Reddit replacement? Weirdly enough, I like reading and commenting on things! And sometimes, I even like reading and commenting on what other people have to say! You know, as long as it isn’t a toxic cesspool of scum and villainy and whatnot. I lasted about two days before I caved and looked into some alternatives. So I went back: to Digg, Fark, Slashdot, and Tildes. Those were just thrown into an RSS folder since I had no interest in creating accounts there.
But where was I going to get that sweet, sweet community commenting commotion? I appear to have landed on Kbin since, why not continue my Fediverse trend? It is currently slow with all the growth, but the user interface is nice. I’m finding my footing. I like it. For now.
So, how am I feeling?
Loads better. I feel more deliberate in my media consumption, not just scrolling for the sake of it. And it feels… nostalgic. It has a lot of the vibe of what I remembered the Internet to be. Of forums with all sorts of people in it, specifically. A part of me will always be searching for that magical time where everyone made their own weird lil websites on the Internet, sometimes coming together in communities for shooting the shit and camaraderie. No data mining or rampant capitalism. No bending over backwards to either appease or circumvent the Ad Infestations.
In other words, The Old Web (and this Thread: “What do you miss the most about the old Internet?”). For the younguns, you can also check out NeoCities and mmm.page for more of That Feeling. That is the gist of all I want to say about it.
So, I don’t think I’ll be returning to Reddit. But we’ll see where I end up afterwards.
On a drive home from work I call mom, because my car can do that now and I need something to do on my 45 minute commute. We were discussing hobbies and things and I kept putting myself down: “My nesting partners are so creative with building things with their hands! All I do is stream video games and write for my blog.”
She goes, “What sort of things do you write?”
I reply, “Oh, anything that comes to mind.” And, I added with only a little hesitation: “I’ll send you a link.” To my credit, I actually did in a rather tight amount of time. And I did not forget, either.
In retrospect, I was only a little apprehensive. When I Officially Came Out on Facebook last year, there was only a little bit of apprehension then, too. I’m about to be 40 in a few years. It’s time I stopped pussyfooting to others about my truth. I’m also a firm believer in Show, Don’t Tell, so while I could’ve summed up my blog with “Introspection, Observations, and Rants” I really thought it better to just show it to her.
Besides, she knows what sorta weirdo I am already.
A blog is very reminiscent of how I handled my composition notebooks when Harriet the Spy was popular in the 90s. As the opposite of Harriet M. Welsh I did let anyone read my journal (and, thanks to the hard lesson she learned, I also learned to keep the really mean juicy bits in my head)! It was full of observations, quotes, song lyrics, boring day stuff, and doodles. In high school, a classmate was so enamored over the phrase “Satan’s Day” I penned that morning that he read the passage to the entire class! While it lacked malicious intent, said passage was still raw in my mind during that time, and I just felt mortified.
So, maybe I’m just predisposed to writing publicly about things. Just, you know, No Adults Allowed until I became one. And, perhaps, not so fiercely private– mom can attest to this; I was always as such from when I was a child. It was so I wouldn’t even tell her the nightmares I had so she could comfort me, and I refused to practice the recorder instrument in the house. I opted to make weak flute noises in the car, with all the windows rolled up.
Well, there’s still no nightmares here, and you won’t be getting context for Satan’s Day. Just things I’d like to share. If you’ve read my disclaimer you know the drill.
As for my mom’s response: she cried. But not in that “jfc you still think Garfield is funny” disappointed crying, the “you are so much like your dad, with your way with words and creativity” crying. Because he also wrote poetry and was a pretty damn good drawer to boot. I like to think I got my flair for storytelling from him, too… and my tendency to troll people. You know, annoy them a little. Like not telling people what the fuck Satan’s Day alluded to.
I’m proud of what I write, except maybe that one post on Halloween a few years back or so. So this was also like “ma lookit me” as I run up to her and show her my crayon drawing of flowers and rabbits.
Well, I wrote the damn thing. Because people going #NoHomo and #NoCuteAllowed in fandom and dunking on fanfic writers compels me to be As Homo and Obnoxious As Possible. Besides, this was an excuse to write some cozy cutefic– Coffeeshop AUs is a not-guilty-at-all pleasure of mine. First installment is below, because you know there’s gonna be more of this silly shit.
So, after a hiatus, I went back to streaming this year! I’m having fun, as per usual, and I even modified my model a little more. But uh, I’m avoiding closeups because I need to tighten and smooth out edges; you can see seams and it’s pretty rough. Not to mention finalizing my outfit: I want to keep it simple, but I’d like to nail down a shirt design.
Scheduling and Playing
My biggest hurdle is still, scheduling. Not only do I need to account for plans I have in meatspace, but I have to consider my energy level. I’ve canceled or postponed streams because I needed to rest, and that’s either because I don’t get enough sleep (insomniac life!) or worn down from the rest of my schedule.
I’ve been playing a LOT of ValiDATE, and while I enjoy it it is a lot of reading! After a while I just get tongue tied. Last week or so I played APICO for a change of pace, with Twitch approved lofi in the background. That is an amazingly chill combo that I should do more.
OBS is Intimidating
I have it downloaded… but not installed. HOWEVER, I’ve finally began using VTopia as backup storage for my streams– Twitch only keeps them for a week, and sometimes I either forget to download them or I have trouble doing so. Because I have a potty mouth and talk about ADULT STUFF, I flagged most of my vlogs as Mature Content– that’d explain the sparse page. There is another channel, for some reason. There’s where OBS will come in.
Also, cap my damn FPS at 60. Anything more and my poor hardware freaks out.
The Lore, you Say?
I’ve also been muddling about with the lore. With the rise of AI tools taking people’s jobs and committing plagiarism, I’ve half a mind to move away from the self-aware AI bit. But… it’s so cool– I mean "real" artificial intelligence, of the science fiction actually-self-aware sort. While I’ve been dipping my toe in the water of vt.social, I’ve come across other AIs, programs or computers personified, and even a rad calculator! Concepts are awesome, and I suppose I need to solidify my own spin on the AI thing. Being around other VTubers is inspiring, as usual!
So, yes, the sentient AI thing is still going to be a thing, but now I know how I want to get weird with it. I’d like to do longform entries on another platform instead of just infodumping here, but in summary:
I was not prepared for the consequences of my poll. But hey, I did ask. I will try to make this interesting.
Before Twitch, and before Youtube branched out, there was streaming service called Mogulus (what happened to them, anyway?). To describe it would be redundant. Some politicians and other important people used it, but in my former neck of the woods it became very popular among those who played video games. While Mogulus eventually left us non-paying customers behind, I always loved the streaming-with-a-live-audience concept.
I’ve subscribed to many streams since then, a variety of those with webcams and voice only. Then… 2D/3D custom characters-as-hosts began growing in popularity. At first, I was content with being an audience member. But with this new creative angle, I actually became interested in streaming myself! I was also seeking a new twist on a hobby I loved (gaming), and to reclaim my creativity and free time from the growing dreariness of my life-draining job. And vent, of course.
I grew caught up with setting up: the branding, scheduling, format, icons– then, one evening, I grew fed up with my self-imposed procrastination. Perfect, after all, is the enemy of good, and Virgos gotta have everything perfect before they start anything… so I brute-forced my way through the insecurity, installed the software, queued up a visual novel I’ve been itching to play, and DID IT LIVE.
My last braincell had ENOUGH.
…And it was Fucking Terrible from a didn’t-even-optimize standpoint, so I didn’t feel bad for the 0 viewers on my first run. (Well, one viewer, but they had to catch a DnD game after giving me audio advice.) But with experimenting and practice, things began coming together. Sometimes I still goof, though.
Some World Building
I was determined to create my own model, but I lacked the technical know-how and did not have the money to commission a model or rigging– but I was up for the challenge. I play around with VROID Studio, following tutorials and learning how to modify the defaults. I knew that I wanted my character to look like… well, like me. But cooler.
Seeing other Black VTubers has simply been inspiring.
I have a whole section in my bullet journal dedicated to design ideas, and I’ve been taking notes of techniques and tools other VTubers found useful. But I’ve also have paragraphs and doodles of the character’s backstory. Inspirations include Ghost in the Shell, SOMA, Macross Plus, Digital: A Love Story, Janelle Monae’s Metropolis, and… Chrono Cross? And if I was any good at games I’d throw in TASbot for good measure, but it’s fun to think about. [Note- a surprising lack of Asimov; make a Three Laws joke later to make up for it.] If you haven’t guessed by now, I enjoy the ethical, technical, and whateverelse-cal ramifications of artificial intelligences, cyberpunky transhumanism, and what it means to be “self-aware.”
I also hold a similar view as Monae’s Mayweather’s when it comes to androids in fiction:
I speak about androids because I think the android represents the new ‘Other’ …You can compare it to being a lesbian or being a gay man or being a black woman… What I want is for people who feel oppressed or feel like the ‘Other’ to connect with the music and to feel like, ‘She represents who I am.’
Artificial intelligences can take years to fully build upon themselves, so in some cases a brainprint of a living person is superimposed onto AI code to “jump start” the self-awareness process. The provider of said brainprint would be the designated Arbiter of the resulting AI; they have a lowercase-a as their designation (ex. “a.Issac”). You can think of Arbiters are caregivers or tie-breakers to logical conundrums. AIs created with the jump-start method tend to be eerily similar to their Arbiter, but may eventually branch off into their own quirks and identity.
There are the “functional” AIs that can write or fix the stock market for you. But, the fun thing self-aware AIs have in common with humans is to find a purpose in life, a niche to fill… or a hobby. Conveniently, Avi’s hobbies line up with mine, and even more conveniently, are easily accessible from px’s origin server with an Internet connection. That’s how “Avi” decided on a name for pxself- it’s a type of video format, px found samples of. For the time being px does not wish to inhabit an android body, but that can change in the future. Avi’s content with communicating with the outside world via px own compilation of the Self-Aware Visual-Variable Protocol, or SAV2P. Lastly, Avi is 3 Laws Compliant on a technicality.
…Or you can just say that Avi is digital!me, but scifi afrofuturistic lore is more fun.
Current Things
Like most folx, my backlog is Large. I’ve been using streaming as an excuse to go through it! I have quite a bit of science fiction and cyberpunk titles to play, and I love to gas up any LGBTQ+ creators. I also like puzzlers and whatever weird thing I come across. I’m currently enjoying ValiDATE, Get in the Car, Loser! (currently grinding; I’m getting my ass kicked), and APICO or Vilmonic for the comfy streams.
I’m naturally taciturn, so I tend to rely on chat prompts and backseating– but I love interacting with the chat! And I am susceptible to ranting if you give me a juicy enough topic. I do have a tendency to get wrapped up in a game and forget about it for a minute or two. There may also be a lot of vocal stimming: the doots, the beeps, the sweeps, and the Spaceballs reference. Tiny improv songs and more songs as well! And I take jokes and run with them.
My stream is rated for MATURE AUDIENCES, to be on the safe side. I talk about all sorts of shit, and cuss a lot, and I’m filtered only a little. I talked about weed that one time and my regulars may know a little too much about the freaky dinks I’m into.
Don’t let the more recent video fool you; I’m still on the quest for bone mischief.
…I just scheduled a cuddle date on a streaming night; it’s little wonder why my schedule is in shambles.
Future Stuff
I am undergoing a cosmetic upgrade as I consider how robotic-looking I'd like to be, as well as contemplating neo-pronouns to refer to pxself. So far, "px" is appealing to me. (Maybe I should do that in-character thing more often. I’m also considering a distinction between AIs and “self-aware” ones. SAAIs?)
Someday I dream of nailing down my schedule. I’m more concerned about consistency.
I could work on my hardware. I need to upgrade my mic; you can hear our cats brawlin’ in the background. The computer can be upgraded later; it currently gets the job done (it can barely handle Stray, VSeeFace, and Twitch Studio running at the same time).
Still no plans to monetize. And considering how Twitch likes to act (badly, to clarify), I’m really not keen on monetizing through them anyway. Maybe I’ll do a tip jar thing in the future, for beer money or emergency funding (I do have Ko-Fi).
With Twitter worming its way out of my social media diet, I’ve mainly been in Discord servers. I need to lurk less, however. I’ve also been following some related hastags on Mastodon. Oh yeah, and what’s this thing?
I hope y’all enjoyed this post, and if you have any cheers and advice I’m all ears!
I’d apologize to Willis, but I’m not particularly sorry about this. Amber’s line is just too relatable. SRC: Shortpacked by David Willis.
While Twitter is having its meltdown (due to sabotage or genuine ineptitude, or both), Mastodon is another microblogging service receiving a massive influx of new users. Some are just trying it out; others plan to migrate permanently, and you’ve probably heard about it by now.
It had certainly been a learning curve away from Twitter’s centralized style, for Mastodon is made of individual instances (think: different servers) that can “talk” to each other. And the Mastodon instances can also “talk” to other decentralized services within the Fediverse! Check out Fedi.Tips, by the way; that site can explain things better than I could.
There’s been some… issues. Some users have been calling it “growing pains” or (cue eyerolling) “Eternal September: Mastodon Version.” The problem with these red herrings is the implication that the current problems are just the effects from the deluge of new users. And that said problems are a recent phenomenon.
It really isn’t, and I’m not talking about the technical stuff.
A marginalized person enters a space and realizes it is intolerant of their lived experiences and right to exist. This isn’t just limited to blatant declarations– microaggressions, the papercuts of experience, can add up over time. The prevalence of the overculture allows the same harmful attitudes to carry over because someone refuses to see beyond the tip of their nose (and, you know, unpack their privilege).
And it has become apparent that Mastodon (among other things) has a racist problem. Here are some recent examples, and certainly not limited to…
the Content Warning debacle: requests to put politics behind a content warning, ignoring the fact that sometimes, entire lives are politicalized (another version of “censor your life for my comfort!”),
the history of PoC-led instances being harassed and even shut down (Look up what happened to PlayVicious; I’ll wait.),
Black people being told to “just move instances/block” instead of admins/moderators doing the necessary work to ensure spaces are safe from the get-go (it’s giving strong “segregate yourself” vibes, for starters, and the onus on the marginalized to change their behavior),
not to mention how one instance’s “I’ll allow it” is another person’s “WTF?!” Unfortunately, sometimes that “wtf” has been trolling, hate speech, and other unsavory topics that’ll get them defederated from more decent instances.
Marginalized identities, in general, don’t have the luxury of “just picking” one or “starting fresh” in a new place. It has to have policies that align with their comfort and safety, and hopefully the moderation to reinforce it. And it sucks if we pick the wrong one: shitty mods, toxic culture, or just a petri dish of grossness.
This wasn’t “just a migration” for a lot of people, self included. I lucked out on discovering an instance that was explicitly queer-friendly, anti-fascist, and so far has been a safe(r) space for people of color– but this would be my third time moving in my 6 years of using the Fediverse, and I may move again. So it goes.
Background radiation, indeed.
So, as always, Black people are having to carve their existence into a space. Like what we’ve done on Twitter and the many platforms before it. We’ve been finding each other and talking. We’ve been remembering servers come and gone and still holding on despite the insidious grip of casual racism. We’ve drawn boundaries. We’re comparing notes. We’ve been having dialogue. We are claiming space.
For Mastodon to not only supersede Twitter but to thrive in its own merit, it needs to not only listen to the vulnerable among us, but implement changes for a better Internet culture. The tools have been there, and so have been their highlighted shortcomings.
