Back in the 2000’s, I was decently involved in the tech world, especially privacy and following/using FOSS. I fell off in a major way as the strain of work and college took over and I just didn’t have the energy to devote to the cause and maintenance of my own resources. During the pandemic, I deleted my Facebook account as I watched friends and family become hateful. I stopped using Twitter as well and finally deleted it when the Musky Boy took over. Reddit was still a community I had trust in as it was relatively anonymous and the user experience was customizable so I could avoid the worst parts. With Reddit’s anti-user and especially anti-accessibility moves I woke up. Y’all at startrek.website gave me a safe starting point to the Fediverse, and I dove back into taking control of my computing experience. How has the upheaval of corporate social media changed your online life?
It hasn’t started with the Fediverse for me, but giving up on mainstream social media meant going back to e-mail penpals, hosting personal websites, going on small forums, using IRC, and well that’s all been a hell of a cool ride.
Blast from the past for me. E-mail pen pals from around the world. Personal websites where there was no such thing as too much. Garish color combos. 15+ different fonts in a variety of sizes and colors, and animated glitter fonts. All the text was centered. Midi music blaring as soon as the web site loaded. And, a web counter and guest book. Chat rooms, where I learned that I really did not want to engage in private chats offers. Sometimes I forget about all that.
It’s all a thing again among some young people. Depending on who you ask, it’s called the web revival, the yesterweb, the indie web or retro internet.
Check out SpaceHey.com for an active social media site replicating what MySpace was at its peak, including a big scenemo userbase. Look at Yesterweb.org, look at Melonland.net and its forum, look through webrings, and especially look at Neocities.org and what people are building there.
We all still have web counters, guest books, webrings, shoutboxes, chat rooms, and terrible (and awesome) design, just with the quality of life of modern bandwidth and internet technologies. :)