I’ve been around long enough that I remember the early days of the internet and I’ve seen a lot of changes. I remember searching something (before Google, on Ask Jeeves or AltaVista) and finding lists of mainly pages of just random text-based websites that tech-savvy people had stuck up. I remember going to the computer lab with my friends before school and sharing funny things and videos–there was no YouTube, just random trains of emails and word-of-mouth of the best websites (like Homestar Runner). I remember a conversation with my uncle during the early days of Wikipedia, when a lot of people were skeptical that it would ever be any good. I had a Juno email address and a Hotmail address, and email was often used to share links with friends and family. I started a blog in somewhere around 2005 or so, and I’ve had my own website of some sort ever since. Back then, blogs were the main way to connect–I remember meeting people online in the comment section of my favorite author’s website. I was also active on a self-hosted forum (no Reddit) and found a sense of community in that small group talking about reading and writing. I would go to Amazon to buy books. And instant message people because texting was hard.
That is just a whole bunch of nostalgia, and I don’t want the internet to be what it was in the 1990s and 2000s. There are some things I like about the internet now, like how Wikipedia is really good.
I got on Instagram a few days ago, and I scrolled through stuff I didn’t care about. I haven’t checked social media very much lately. I used to do it all the time, sometimes for hours. But if I’m honest, I’ve never really enjoyed it. I get sick of seeing faces of people who are good at producing a lot of content, but they aren’t my friends or people I care about. Those shortform videos are so jarring–too short to really convey that much, and always viewed in large, random, confusing batches. I think we might keep scrolling over and over again because none of them leave us feeling satisfied. Our attention is actually starving to be engaged in something. It’s like eating too much popcorn or candy when we’re really hungry for dinner.
I posted some pictures on Instagram. That’s what Instagram used to be, just pictures. I like creating content, but I don’t like trying to game what’s going to be popular. I’m still blogging. I’m still posting pictures.
So much of the internet is about selling attention to corporations. Advertisements are everywhere. We all go to the same few websites. It’s mind-numbing, frustrating.
The good thing about having your own website is you are largely in control of it. You can take up space, have time to be yourself and present yourself in the way that you want to. You aren’t fitting yourself and optimizing yourself into a corporation’s view of what should bring the most views, chasing attention.
Sometimes I wish more people blogged again–people I know and care about. I have quite a few blogs I used to follow that have quit in favor of more lucrative social media posts. Blogging is rarely done by individuals anymore. People did it for a while and then they stopped, leaving a graveyard of former blogs that have since died.
I wish I could go on a website and not be inundated with ads and sponsored posts. I wish I didn’t search things and get false information from A.I. I want to visit website of people who are sharing what they love instead.
But I think we can bring back elements of the internet that we miss. Homestar Runner is still posting videos, after all, and you do not have to visit YouTube to view them. I’m still blogging and occasionally posting pictures. And I still very much enjoy and support long-form content and people who are doing really creative things on their own websites. I like when people post on occasion something meaningful.
We used to have blogrolls and share our favorite blogs with each other. So here are some fun things:
It’s Nicky Case!
Home – Utah’s Adventure Family
xkcd
Cool Things We Found
Neocities: Create your own free website!
Maybe I should share more often? But I like discovering things randomly, hearing about them from friends, connecting with people. And I don’t need that much of the internet in my life either. The most important part of my life is real-life interaction with actual people.
Heather Hoyt 