In light of all the horrendous shenanigans currently going on here in the ole' You Ess of Ay, I have been doing a sort of spring cleaning of my digital life. Scrubbing any and all stuff and dealios that I am not OK with being publicly accessible.
This has MOSTLY entailed social media.
Once upon a time, social media was this cool way we came up with to connect to people outside of our immediate geographical radius. Mama has ALWAYS been a rolling stone, so this was especially appealing to me. It was a communication tool; a way to stay connected to folks I encountered during my travels and such, not a revenue stream and certainly not a foundation of ones identity.
The money pigs hadn't yet infiltrated this free and public area much beyond ad space on the websites that were hosting these gatherings, and generally speaking, you weren't being force-fed nonsense by algorithms tracking you and your interests. If you wanted dark, or unsettling content, it was there, but you had to go looking for it.
Folks could do neat things like share art or their writing or music and chat with folks visually and in real time. It was a way to shrink the world and grow our communities: A place where people could realize that maybe they weren't alone. A person could access all the worlds knowledge and culture with just a few keystrokes.
It was uncharted territory.
And sure, you had your predators, and trolls and the like, but that was anywhere, and most of us knew about "stranger danger" and had the sense not to let ourselves be too exposed. There was enough real world experience going around to know how to navigate such things -- generally.
But over the last 20ish years, it's gotten spoiled. Turned rotten. It's been appropriated by greed and paranoia. People live and die by how many faceless randos "like" the most basic, empty, unimportant stuff, and it's sad.
Kids don't go out to play. To explore. To discover. To imagine and grow. Instead, people let social media raise them; Fill their heads with conspiracy, and idiotic pablum. Basic life skills are being lost. More and more people are succumbing to anxiety and self isolation.
Now that the money pigs are running the show, people are backing off. Unplugging. Meeting friends in person.
Maybe this needs to happen. Maybe people need to work on themselves and rediscover the tangible world. Reestablish human contact. Perhaps this is our wake up call to detox and find ourselves offline again.
Hard to say. I'm only musing here.
But I and some of my cohorts are cashing out. We're unplugging from the matrix, so to speak. There are non corporate, grass roots and crowd supported platforms out there to help scratch that itch and ease your withdrawal. It's the original recipe of digital encounters. Mastadon, Loops, Pixelfed... even blogs and personal websites are starting to come out of retirement.
Maybe so will art shows, and local events and music and dive bars and playgrounds and parks. Maybe we won't panic if we leave the phone off for a day, or on silent or in the car while we hang out with our friends and loved ones.
The mind boggles.
So here I am, rebooting this blog of mine that I started 19 years ago. I gave it a new paint job, greased the wheels and pruned some of the dead bits. If you're reading this, welcome. Have a look around. Maybe come back to visit.
Let's see how it goes.
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