In 2025 I’m going to party like it’s 1999. Yes, this is a blog.
The last time I tried to do this was 2008. I was building websites and volunteering in opensource software, while “working” at a gardencentre (aka – hiding in a greenhouse, reading web design books.) It was the year I saw the first iPhones in the wild, and organized Joomla Day Vancouver.
At that time Facebook was everyone’s favourite distraction, and I posted everything; what I was eating, where I was going, where I wanted to go, what kind of car I wanted to buy, even how much I hated my job at the time.
Oof.
The “memories” of those early statuses are cringeworthy… incidentally, that’s also how I feel about this post while revising it four weeks later.
For the past decade I’ve considered the benefits of logging off entirely, but I always run up against the complications of disconnecting. Namely, social media is a convenient link to friends and family and those connections are important.
Side note: babies born in 2006/2007 are graduating from highschool and, in Canada, some are legal drinking age. That’s how long we’ve been voluntarily posting on facebook and all the other sites that followed.… that’s how long our personal digital content has been someonelse’s product to sell and trade and profit from.
In the beginning it was novel and it had some merit and benefit to users–e.g. those connections I mentioned above. I have cousins I may never have met if not for Facebook, and the first year so of the site brought many reunions with old school friends.
Lately, speaking strictly for myself here, all this stuff has become a scrolling habit with not enough benefit to make it worthwhile. I’d rather use my time to do more of what I enjoy, and writing is high on that list.
Having my own space again hosted by my friends at Rochen and mostly free from the clutches of the broligarchy (I still need to find a better method to host a million photos) feels good and I’m looking forward to writing/sharing/posting in a more thoughtful way.
For the foreseeable future my updates will take place here on this site.
Disclaimers:
This is a work in progress so, if you end up following along, please bear with me as I tweak the layout, handle all the website managing stuff, and find time to write anything worthwhile.
Finally, should I crumble into dust at the mention of this site in a real life conversation… it’s not you, it’s me. I’m comfortable writing about my goings on and sending the words into the internet abyss on my own terms and timeline, but few things make me feel less at ease than being put on the spot to talk about myself. It’s called being an introvert.
Life is good.
Stay tuned.
W.
photo: one of my earlier social media profile pics, circa 2011. I still have that coat, and it’s still my favourite.