The first time I ever accessed the internet would've been in about 2003; that characteristic dial-up connection sound is burned into my brain. It changed my entire world, as it did for nearly everybody I grew up with and interacted with. This was before the days where everyone I knew was online. I have very fond memories of scrolling around various websites, and never having to make an account on any services! I don't think I even got an e-mail address until about 2006. Those are the days of the internet I long for. I remember watching YouTube for the first time in late 2006 or early 2007 - a friend showed me a Weird Al parody video. I was amazed that you could watch videos online, and I really never went back to TV after that point - it opened up a whole world of possibilities for me, and most of the learning I did in my early life was by self-teaching from YouTube tutorials. As things like FaceBook and MSN Messenger (anyone remember bebo and tagged?) exploded in popularity, I joined them. However, those services never gave me the same enjoyment that YouTube did - my early days of 'doom-scrolling' always felt like hours wasted.
Throughout high school, I watched all of these centralized platforms continue to grow. Facebook hit 500 million users, then a billion... It kept growing. We were all astounded at the never before seen growth of this new thing - a 'social network'. When I joined Facebook, three people I knew were on it. By the end of high school, you were a weird 'jaded outcast' type if you didn't have it. This continued growth and centralization of the internet went unchecked and was seen by pretty much everyone apart from conspiracy theorists as a good thing - everyone can create their little communities on our service, everybody is in the same place, it's like being in a little village where it's easier to get to know people, it's great! Well, it was great, until Edward Snowden came along and proved PRISM to be a real thing. Our eyes were opened to the data collection and surveillance practices that governments undertook against their citizens, and we finally started to pay attention to website privacy policies on the data they collect, and the data they either sell to, or allow third-parties to collect from their users. This, along with increasingly draconian algorithms and policies designed to censor users and narrow discourse has allowed social networks to turn into hives of right-wing extremists, unadulterated narcissists, and boomers having their money scammed from them. What is considered 'free speech' is now completely dictated by the elites behind those sites - Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter will make this worse - not better. For example, there is a reason Rupert Murdoch runs many of his biggest broadsheets at a loss - it is for the purpose of agenda setting. Those in silicone valley realize the potential and the unfettered power of a new, centralized internet in the continuance of agenda-setting theory well into the future as print media dies out, and are now pivoting to control these platforms.
I once heard someone say "yes, we have free speech, but is speech really free if we are only discussing what a small group of people want us to be discussing?", this lessening of the parameters of free speech has divided humanity more than it ever has been over the past decade - they have us fighting a culture war to distract us from the class war we should be fighting. Everything is okay for the rich elites as long as nobody is inhibiting their incomes. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, CEO salaries in my country (Australia) grew by 25%, while minimum-wage workers are fighting for a measly 5% pay rise - which is barely going to keep up with the current rampant inflation, and only amounts to about $1/hr. What are the media saying about this? Senior execs on $150k-$200k/yr are complaining and saying that businesses can't afford it, which is patently untrue. Friendlyjordies explains it very well in many of his excellent YouTube videos; the media exist entirely to be mastheads for the agendas of their owners - Facebook, Twitter, Google services have now grown into some of the largest new-age media empires in the world.
I strongly believe that one's internet presence should be a reflection of their true personality, their true thoughts, their true ability to think critically about the information they consume. It should be about presenting the truest side of yourself, and what you believe in. For me personally, these large social networks no longer allow me to do this freely. I get no satisfaction from the audience that currently views my content, and any meaningful interaction with the people who supposedly care about what I have to say is stifled through 'likes' and 'views', we have all been trained to become obsessed with metrics and numbers - nobody seems to want to engage in deep conversation or thought anymore.
I remember when I was about 12, I was given a book on the basics of HTML. It was written in the days where it was completely normal to self-host your own website; not just businesses did it, but even regular, everyday people. It opened my eyes to the possibility that one day, with enough practice, I could learn to code my own website - to build my own internet presence. I love finding the little relics from the internet's past, they hold my attention for far longer than the sanitised, limited pages of people on the bigger platforms. There is usually no fancy theme or style, just some basic HTML and maybe some CSS, and the rest is all personal content that is both absorbing, and interesting to consume. Before I had the chance to really absorb myself in the creation of my own website, though, I was wooed by the advances of social media, and the ease of operation it provided. I think the reason MySpace became so successful in the early days of the rise of social media is because of this. They enabled people to set themes and personalise the look of their own site, without having to spend time learning web design. They allowed us to instead focus on how we wanted to portray ourselves to our friends and to the world. We're all human, we're social creatures, and we all have unique personalities and experiences. It seems that these days we all want to filter out the negativity, maybe because we are exposed to so much of it in the world around us. It creates this huge imbalance throughout people's personal internet presences, where they only ever share life's highs with eachother - the things that truly matter, that remind us that we are all human seem to be forgotten. It's a toxic existence where we are losing true care for eachother, and where whoever can 'flex' the most is who we want to be.
If you'd like to read more about the thinking behind the need for personalisation and the re-decentralization of social media, and the need for a shift away from big tech, please see the articles here and here. They're both absolutely fantastic reads, will open you up to a cute little world you probably forgot existed, and they explain this stuff far better than I ever could! If you'd like to help me, I'd ask you to think about how you use social media and the internet in general, and ask yourself if it is really serving in your best interests! If you'd like to start your own decentralized social media presence or learn more, feel free to contact me!
I want this website to be my internet home. I want it to showcase my journey of detachment from big tech and social media. I want to slowly shift to self-hosting all of my own content, bit by bit, on my own terms. The current centralized internet contributes to the growing sentiments of division and hate in modern society, and I want to try to detach from that. I want to shift my focus to producing content with meaning. I want to think again, to converse with people about things that really matter. This is what the internet was when I first came to it, and we now seem to be so far removed from the once-great information superhighway that we were creating - free from the burdens of analytics, advertising, and toxicity. I want this site to become a gateway to the truest reflection of myself, and my very limited time on this earth. I hope you'll join me for the ride.