I am your Extremely Online Friend who thinks in memes
I think it’s pretty fair to say that I am an Extremely Online Person. The internet captured my imagination when I was a teenager, back when my ISP was my local library and our online time was limited to 60 minutes (though I can’t remember if that was per session or per day). There wasn’t a lot to do on the internet back then — not like today when you can mindlessly doomscroll for 30 minutes without even realizing or intending to, after you’ve picked up your phone to check the time or the weather forecast — but I did wind up on some bulletin boards and on a couple of listservs (anyone remember SOMMS?) and learning to make a website with Geocities. So like, I could do all of my internetting and then still also have time to read books. What a time.
^SOMMS
My history of internet usage is not particularly interesting or even really necessary to write about (and I have this nagging feeling that I have written it all at some point anyway) but one thing I’ve been thinking about in the past couple of weeks is when being online used to be fun. It still can be, fun, that is, but over the past decade and a half I think the internet has mostly become something that we’re just always present on because we have forgotten how to be unstimulated for even a minute, rather than a thing we’re doing because we like it. And maybe I’m using the royal We there, in that I know I am bad at staying off of the dopamine machine.
But the thing about being an Extremely Online Person is that I have seen a lot of places that people couldn’t live without come and go. I have spent a lot of time in online communities that just don’t exist anymore, or are only shells of their former selves because they were abandoned by their users, or the admins decided they didn’t want to run them, or whatever. It’s fine. It happens.
One thing about this blog specifically is that I used to update it more before everybody was on Facebook. I never had a big crossover between meatspace (I hesitate to call it real life because online life is also real life) friends and online friends who read my website at any time; mostly this was for the online folks. I would sometimes mention to my friends or family in meatspace about my website or my photography on Flickr (another site that is a shell of its former self) and they might say they would check it out, and maybe even they would sometimes, but the audience I had at one point was mostly my fellow online travelers. That’s not a complaint or anything about anyone; just… “Hey I wrote about this on my blog” is a thing that… what are we supposed to do while we’re at the bar circa 2010? Pull out our laptops and read it?
But Facebook (and phones) changed a lot of that, at least for me, in that everyone’s eyeballs were there, so if I was going to write about something, or share a photo, or whatever, I just did it there (and Instagram). And while it’s understandable, I tend to think that the centralization of all of that internetting is… not great for the internet. Which people smarter and better connected than I am have I’m sure already opined about in a way that is better than I am currently doing.
Anyway. I haven’t been on Facebook with any sort of regularity for months, because I don’t enjoy it there. I understand that a lot of people I know are there, and they do enjoy it (when I do pop in, at least for the past few weeks, I’ve seen at least 1 post each time from a different person stating that they are staying because their friends are there). Cool. Do it up. But once upon a time your friends were also all on MySpace, so.
There are many people who are deleting all of their Meta accounts because of the lack of fact checking and that is a good enough reason. But also let’s be honest: Facebook has never been on your side, it just wants you to spend your every waking moment mindlessly scrolling there. I am not deleting, for now. There are a few community organizations who only post updates on Facebook about what they’re up to, and I would’ve missed some stuff going on if I hadn’t checked in. But I don’t feel like I need to do more there than that. Though not being able to stand election posts was why I decided to take a break, it turned out that not being on Facebook felt good for my mental health. Also when I go there I very rarely ever see posts from people on my friends list, but I do see a lot of garbage posts from meme pages. Also stuff like this:
So, I mean, Facebook IS offering amazing options these days.
Anyway, I miss the social internet, but the one where we talked about stuff instead of just hitting like and moving on. I don’t know if it will come back, but if it can, I’m going to try to be here more (I know I keep saying that but maybe eventually it will stick) so… say something, my comments are open. (Moderated, because if you’re an asshole go away, but still. Open.)
Maybe I just miss chat rooms.
Otherwise
First, I am also on Bluesky. I haven’t been on Twitter since whenever whatsits bought it. Feel free to follow me there if you’re also there — it would be fun to chat more there as well.
Second, though it should be first because it’s more interesting, I am in not one but two plays this season, with performances for the first near the end of February and the second at the first weekend of March. One is a contemporary rom-com(ish) play and the other is a George Bernard Shaw one-act so line memorization is a trip! But it feels good to be back onstage. I hadn’t done a show since the end of 2023.
Third, though really this should actually be first because it is DEFINITELY more interesting: my dog is cute.
Finally, a poem
Riprap
By Gary Snyder
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
4 responses to “Where do you go when you want to chat and other questions”
I’ve always, always, always loved your writing and your “voice” (also your voice, but that’s another topic for another day, I guess), and were it not for the internet, I would not be here commenting today. The internet (specifically Facebook, I must say) has helped me to reconnect with people with whom I’d parted ways after high school, and it has helped me to connect with people whose parents knew my parents—people I’d not known existed until a few years ago.
I stopped posting at Instagram (because yes, I hate Meta, even if I do appreciate Facebook’s reach) and am trying to make a go of things again at Flickr, but it’s like returning home after a long time away only to find a ghost town. Over the years, I have continued to pay for the Pro status there—despite not posting all that much—because of all the conversations I didn’t want to disappear, but as I go through old photos (usually while looking for something specific), I see so many usernames followed by “(deleted)” and it makes me sad; it also makes me wonder why I bother. But so much time and energy and love and laughter went into the experiences there that it’s so very hard to just walk away. But maybe that’s just me.
Also… I’m a little bummed I no longer live close enough to be able to attend your plays. That would be cool.
I wrote a long reply and then WordPress ate it. Sigh.
I don’t think I can recreate the whole thing but a few points:
1. I think most of the folks who I have stayed friends with online over the years are from Flickr. There are a few from other sites, but the Flickr bonds do tend to be the strongest/the Flickr people are the most online? Anyway I am grateful for all of those connections. It was some very fun times. I also have maintained my Flickr Pro account all these years even though I think the last year I posted regularly there was maybe 2010. It feels like 2010 was a big year for me in terms of shifting online to Facebook (I’d been on Facebook for a few years prior but only used it a little) though I don’t really know what the catalyst was. Maybe just everyone was shifting around then?
2. The social internet has changed quite a lot over the past decade + in that I think we are now all the main characters of our own online presences that we maintain across sites asking people to please clap at our efforts instead of the social part actually being part of the process of posting. I feel like Flickr (specifically Utata) was a real way to creatively come up with things and make stuff because we were all inspiring each other. I don’t think anything like that exists in any social media site anymore. Or at least not in any social media sites that I participate in/the way I participate in social media. The closest may be Facebook groups, depending what the groups are for.
3. Someday if you’re in the Midwest and I’m in a play, drop by. They are usually fun!
I definitely miss chat rooms.
As an older Very Online Person, I feel the same way you do. I miss Flickr. I miss Wet Canvas, which was a forum for artists way back when and was probably my first experience of social media outside of chat rooms. I’m still clinging to the forums on Ravelry, which is a yarn and yarncraft database that also happens to have discussion forums (most of the discussion moved to Instagram a number of years ago, but I never liked it there and now it’s basically unusable). I belong to one Ravelry group that reminds me of Utata in its devotion to rampant creativity, and I am so glad it still exists! Nearly all of my closest friends are people I know from Ravelry, but I mostly keep in touch with them via Slack workspaces, where we, you know, chat.
I still have my Flickr Pro account too, although I don’t use it much. I can’t quite bring myself to let it go. Utata was a real high point for me in my online life.
The promise of the internet did not deliver. Unfettered libertarian capitalism decided to ruin it instead. It’s just lonelier out there now.
I recently wrote something about not liking your dog but in your case I would make an exception because you always presented your dog as an extension of you. The other thing is that having received a postcard at one time from you I will forever hold you in high regard. It’s a shame because the things you talk about are true and some really great communities did fall by the wayside (Flickr).
What replaced it isn’t anything I would consider the internet really… it’s social media. I don’t think of social media as even real, it’s its own faux world where people pretend to be closer to others than they really are. It’s the place where everyone is desperately looking for the 15 minutes of fame that was wrongly attributed to Warhol.
I still am somewhat amazed by it all… if you wouldn’t share all your personal details with companies to avoid getting junk mail or spam, why would one willingly post this info on the web where everything lives forever? Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter (now X) and Tik Tok are all spaces I’ve avoided like the plague because I value my privacy and don’t really think these spaces add anything productively to our society or culture.
It’s nice to see you come alive here again though. It does make me smile because what you say is important.