Heads up, I write straight into this page like its a word document, so as long as it's marked as under construction, expect sentances that trail off and ideas that come out of nowhere. Sorry!
My birth year, 2000, will always be the first thing I want to mention when someone asks about my reltaionship with technology. Despite the fact that I think sharing your age on the internet is a little dangerous, I share mine because it provides a lot of context for my use of the internet. Because, sure 80's and 90's kids watched the internet become accessible to a huge number of people, and yes there were some things I missed out on, but I've always had the distinct feeling that technology and me are growing up together.
In the mid 00s I browsed the web with my parents over my shoulder. Sometimes I would find a personal site like the ones here on neocities. They never piqued my interest because 5 year old me was looking for something to play and I'm sure my parents didn't love them either as they were more likely to feature content that wasn't kid friendly. Still, I took note of them and imagined one day I might have my own.
By the time I could browse the internet with no supervision, things had changed and I forgot about this dream.
I mean no insult when I say people younger than myself largely have no idea how to use the internet. More and more often I am hearing that today's youth don't even really know how to use a computer, because smart devices are their primary access point to the internet. For them, I imagine the internet is not a vast interconnected network of sites and servers, but several megacorporations who's sites you log into on a daily basis. Hell, even to me the internet doesn't seem as huge and sprawling as it used to.
I like watching YouTube videos on internet history. More than a few times I've seen a creator track down a webmaster from an ancient and mysterious site, the commenters fascinated by how something so novel and strange can exist. And its just a normal guy still paying to host his old personal site. I want to grab those commenters by the shoulders and shout about how this is completely standard internet behavior! How the intricacies of coding your own page were, and really are, totally within everyone's grasp! How you too can have a basic html page about whatever niche interest has captured your attention! How it can contain anything and everything you want it to!
I just need everyone to see that there is more out here than follower counts and meme formats and squares of photos. There is so much more. I see innovation within the confines of these spaces and I know there's potential for more. I've spent the majority of my life using social media but I still remember what the internet was like before it took over. I remember how free it felt.
Social media does allow us a certain amount of freedom to share and express. We can showcase our creativity through visual art, music, poetry, videos, blog posts, and more. Of course, you can do this on a personal site too, but the barrier for entry is higher. With social media, the difficult parts are fully automated. We don't even have to seek anything out, it's brought straight to us with a newsfeed or 'for you' page. The consequence is that our art is heavily shaped by social media. First just by the limits of what can be posted, and then by the desire to gain followers.
It's important to me that I don't let nostalgia prevent me from remembering the not so great parts of the internet. Like how immediately capitalism wormed its way into almost every space.