Wed Nov 19, 2025 11:23 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because… Wed Nov 19, 2025 11:23 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because…
i think it's a bit of both
i'll be honest. my relationship with tech in the 2000s wasn't healthy either. but at least that unhealthy usage was less common. nowadays it feels like everyone has social media addiction or a youtube addiction or a discord addiction or what have you. i miss when media wasn't an endless stream of content that was meant to be consumed endlessly while half-paying attention to your 5 am to 10 pm job

Sat Nov 22, 2025 11:21 pm Added Open-shell to my setup! Sat Nov 22, 2025 11:21 pm Added Open-shell to my setup!

It was a bit tricky to setup (pro tip: do NOT install the explorer addon), but worth it.

Wed Nov 12, 2025 4:11 pm Vaio laptop promotional wallpapers (from 2002) Wed Nov 12, 2025 4:11 pm Vaio laptop promotional wallpapers (from 2002)
Found by chance these promotional wallpapers still hosted in a corner of Vaio JP website ! This laptop is the PCG-QR3E/BP model from 2002 (released in February 2002), from the Vaio QR serie

https://i.ibb.co/tTc4Ybw3/Capture-d-e-cran-2025-11-12-a-16-56-59.png

https://i.ibb.co/DHxCpG99/Capture-d-e-cran-2025-11-12-a-16-57-39.png

Information about the serie from Wikipedia JP (translated with DeepL)

A4 file-sized notebook. The early QR1 series features a glossy black chassis with an aluminum handle, evoking the shape of a bag. The later QR3 series adopts a distinctive design with a glossy white chassis and speakers directly connected to the left and right sides of the display. Both series include a mouse cover matching the main unit's design, compatible with VAIO genuine option mice (models available at the time). Performance-wise, it is an entry-level model.

Original text :

A4ファイルサイズノート。初期型のQR1系列は光沢のあるブラックの筺体でアルミのハンドルが付いたバッグをイメージさせる形状、後期型のQR3系列は光沢のあるホワイトの筺体でディスプレイの左右に直接接続できるスピーカーを有する形状と、特徴あるデザインを採用している。両系列とも本体と共通するデザインのマウスカバーが付属し、VAIO純正オプションのマウス(当時発売モデル)に装着できる。性能面からはエントリーモデル。



The two Vaio PCG-QR3E/BP web pages (a time capsule ! I truly love the UI) :
https://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PCOM/PCG-QR3E/feat3.html
https://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/PCOM/PCG-QR3/feat3.html
(I archived the page on Internet Archive too)

The wallpapers can be downloaded directly on the two pages. I also archived these wallpapers on Google Drive, in case these two pages disappear one day and became inaccessible
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zXu0Yb_9211GABq5FhKSj1dQuJ4Ivjz0

Thu Dec 18, 2025 12:12 am Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization Thu Dec 18, 2025 12:12 am Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization
I always see this kind of thread everywhere in other forums. This doomer mentality that the "old web" was so much better and that the modern web has gone to shit. Not that that's entirely wrong but I feel this point has been obnoxious to the alt web, atleast to me. We need to move on at some point and just enjoy the new forum format; have new discussions that couldn't be had with a simple tweet and the cool new formatting.

We can also try to introduce to each other new places to simply check out. Sure its not going to be as active or frequent and thats ok but its important to understand our options.

:cyan_angel:

Sun Dec 14, 2025 3:44 pm Orange juice brah Sun Dec 14, 2025 3:44 pm Orange juice brah
I don't know what you want it to be, it tastes weird.
Unfortunately, this is from Logitech F710, I made my first vectorbloom.

Tue Nov 18, 2025 7:41 am Re: do you like 2000s tech because… Tue Nov 18, 2025 7:41 am Re: do you like 2000s tech because…
If you don't mind me doing some late night ramblings probably a bit of both. Sure, some of this skewed rose tinted glasses from being a kid with not care in the world until like 2015. But there are somethings that feel different now.

There's this tendency toward simplistic and minimalist design. Whether it be logos, websites, ui ect. It can look good but I feel like 2000s-2010s had more personality and style behind the design. Everything feels so uniform now.

Also, as other have mentioned, I miss not everything being locked behind a subscription and become software/streaming as service model. This increasing erosion of ownership of media and software is something I'm increasingly becoming concerned about. Be it games, video, or music to name a few. Yes i know techinally they were still "licences" even back then but I didnt risk losing the media or software until the physical medium broke, or I lost it or something!

That's why I've been backing up what media I can, support gog, look into linux and self hosting options to combat ever increasing enshitification of services. Because I know how it used to be even if there is some good in the modern world.

Finally I realized i sort of missed when devices had more of a singular purpose instead of do it all on the portable black box (which im typing this on). Much in the same vain as "the computer used to be respect" or "the internet used to be a place" train of thought. I dont know if i want to go back to that 100% but I feel like it helped compartmentalized tech use. Argueably this also in part due to lack of control over our own devices as well, but I that physical separation might be helpful much in the same way one room should not be the eat, sleep, entertain room of your house.

Tue Dec 02, 2025 1:22 am Re: so what are your fellings bout AI.. Tue Dec 02, 2025 1:22 am Re: so what are your fellings bout AI..
i like, unironically have a major phobia of AI generated imagery... its the only thing i actually need tagged yet its so rampant on the internet. i dont like it. everything about ai "art" scares me, and ai videos mess me up even more. ugh

Tue Nov 18, 2025 8:21 am Re: do you like 2000s tech because… Tue Nov 18, 2025 8:21 am Re: do you like 2000s tech because…
IMO the tech was superior. It wasn't all designed to to include a big funnel to aggregate and abscond with your personal data. It was possible to be anonymous because there weren't a buttload of content networks, free service providers, & other types of shady corporations (or the government) working to aggregate data on you to track everything you do online and tie it to you personally via normal tech devices. These days you have to be pretty technical to be able to evade all that stuff to any degree because it's just so baked into almost every electronic device you can buy. Back then you didn't have to wonder what kind of data your electronics were going to scrape from you or worry what could happen if that data is correlated with other data from your other devices (because none of them were spying on you).

Mon Dec 01, 2025 12:23 pm Re: Opinions on new internet ? And new tech ? Mon Dec 01, 2025 12:23 pm Re: Opinions on new internet ? And new tech ?
So I actually have mixed feelings on the current internet and tech landscape.
Like... alot of the mainstream is bad. It's optimized to keep you on as long as possible to sites/platforms; something I'm trying to break away from with mixed success. Alot of these platforms are also designed more for number go up than any meaningful connection whoch makes it feel like a rat race. There's been a loss of control with our tech, especially with the advent of YOUR FRIDGE TRYING TO ADVERTIZE TO YOU. :blue_neutral: The most recent extential hell and threat of AI/LLMs makes me feel like I'm going mad.

But there's also genuine attempts of indie animations and games. I've met some fantatic people through online friend groups and discord chats. Open source projects, while often struggle to monetarily support themselves, is still alive and well. People are trying to break away a bit either through decentralized platforms, by returning to old school methods like blogs and forums and even selfhosting services to reclaim some of our digital lives.

Dont get me wrong, there's a lot wrong with the modern web and tech, but its not all bad. Just feel like we need to rewire some brains, and try to push back where we can. Which kind of feels like self parenting but... I kind of want control of my attention again.

Thu Dec 11, 2025 3:27 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because… Thu Dec 11, 2025 3:27 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because…
More simple, less subscription and paid extras. Everything came in full back then instead of in bits. Games released back then were final product and were polished crisp and clean unlike now where there are issues and bugs riddled across the game upon release and the acceptance to roll out game updates over time to fix the issues bit by bit. I just like the idea of pressing to turn on console or computer, and just navigate to what I want to do in minimal presses and clicks instead of now with multiple features and things I need to get through to get to where I need to be. :yellow_smile:

Sun Dec 07, 2025 3:29 am Re: When do you think the internet started declining and why? Sun Dec 07, 2025 3:29 am Re: When do you think the internet started declining and why?

After 2020-2022 it just became completely ruined, though. At least 2014-19 you could find elements of the older internet and places where sensible discussion could be had with people.


I agree, I feel that in the late 2010s we mainly tolerated the state of social media then, but several things happened between 2019 and now that cause the state of the mainstream internet to enter a 90 degree nosedive in terms of content. 2020 gave us the pandemic which pushed many of us to be more active in the already crappy social media landscape, which may have led to radicalization/polarization in some people (I BARELY escaped the right wing pipeline around that time).

In 2022, Elon decided to buy Twitter and allowed for post monetization and an algorithm boost when signing up for Twitter Blue. Unlike YouTube where some quality standards are expected (long form at least), the quality standards for Twitter are much lower. The result? Countless ragebait posts designed to maximize engagement and ruin one's mental health in the process, along with "dunks" on said ragebait posts which only attract attention to the original shitty post, making it worse. Gimmick accounts which I once thought were the least controversial and the only tolerable thing on the site, began to be bought and sold like it's the stock market, often with those gimmick accounts being retooled to be part of the spew of ragebait.

Around 2023, Instagram decided to start pushing controversial and mean comments towards the top, which probably helped fan the flames of modern ragebait (see also: "instagram comments compilation"). I haven't been on instagram but from what I've heard, this might've also happened on posts due to the reportedly high amounts of offensive content, even neo-nazi content!

And of course, we all know what AI had done to the internet, which helped us get to where we are today.

There's a very interesting video on the lack of empathy caused by the modern post 2020 social media landscape as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKk5CxAXhg

Of course, forums also have their own downsides, such as

Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:09 pm Re: this might be the end Mon Dec 08, 2025 9:09 pm Re: this might be the end
I think if yourusing a vpn you shopuld be fine
but the government defenatly shouldnt be taking care of minors thats the parents job,,,,,

Thu Dec 18, 2025 1:39 pm Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization Thu Dec 18, 2025 1:39 pm Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization

I always see this kind of thread everywhere in other forums. This doomer mentality that the "old web" was so much better and that the modern web has gone to shit. Not that that's entirely wrong but I feel this point has been obnoxious to the alt web, atleast to me. We need to move on at some point and just enjoy the new forum format; have new discussions that couldn't be had with a simple tweet and the cool new formatting.

We can also try to introduce to each other new places to simply check out. Sure its not going to be as active or frequent and thats ok but its important to understand our options.

:cyan_angel:


If you go to the extreme and reject everything modern, then yeah you have a problem. I don't like when people shame others for not prefering the older thing, or in the frutiger aero community, people for liking flat design, stuff like that. At the end it's just a preference and these things are a product of their time and a trend.

Like Web 2.0 designs I think had a lot of personality and were fun but flat design is easy to read and has better accessibility for mobiles and disabled people so I don't hate it either, they are also easier to make which makes developers jobs easier. But it's true a lot of websites look the same. However if you look at some asian websites they still look super bloated, compared to minimalism in the west.

The old web was in many ways better but also not always better. The web is still great, it's an open sea and there's more websites about more things than ever before, and that's not something to take for granted. We have even got a revival of the personal website trend with places like Neocities and Nekoweb, so it's not all garbage.
We have places like Archive.org to visit old websites, Wikipedia.org, the biggest encyclopedia ever. We have instant access to a massive library of videos made by creators on YouTube. If you showed all this tech to someone in the 80s I think they wouldn't believe it.

Some things have gotten worse but also so many things have gotten better too and people always prefer to focus on the bad especially YouTubers because they can make juicy clickbait thumbnails and get that sweet ad money.

My conclusion: celebrate the past and what we have made, and create more cool things today so that we can say the same tomorrow.

Fri Nov 28, 2025 11:39 pm Yume Nikki Fangames Fri Nov 28, 2025 11:39 pm Yume Nikki Fangames
Maybe a bit of a strange topic, but I feel like this forum's bound to have people in it who'd appreciate games like this that are heavily artistic and showcase many different aesthetics. I'm a HUGE fan of 2kki, it's probably one of my favourite games of all time--and with the fact that it's being hosted online for anyone to play on demand, it's now easier than ever for more people to give it a try. (Now you don't have to turn your computer Japanese.)

Some people don't like the fact that it's way larger and feels less cohesive than the original game, but to me this is a major selling point cause it feels like a huge art gallery made by tons of different people wanting to tell different stories and paint different scenes. I've definitely been moved emotionally by the game more than once, and the feeling of coming across something incredible while just exploring at random is unbeatable. Not sure if any of the game's artists have attempted a frutiger-aero-ish map yet, (the game's so big that it's possible that a map like this is out there and I just haven't come across it) but maybe some people here might appreciate Wind Turbine Plateau, the expansiveness of which feels pretty palpable when you go there for real.

https://i.postimg.cc/dVn4D5KB/image.png

Other than that, I've also played Collective Unconscious and a little bit of Yume Tsushin--I don't jump between fangames a lot, I like to focus on one for long periods of time before going to another. Anyway, yeah. Curious if there are others here that are into these kinds of games or might like to give them a try!

Sun Nov 16, 2025 7:35 pm My little Frutiger Aero corner Sun Nov 16, 2025 7:35 pm My little Frutiger Aero corner
I made a little corner on my desk with some Frutiger Aero themed stuff. Hope you like it!

Sun Dec 21, 2025 1:28 am Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization Sun Dec 21, 2025 1:28 am Re: The fear of Nostalgia Weaponization

Frutiger Aero I think has gotten a bit too political for it's own good with titles like "The Future We Were Promised" where they use this neat aesthetic to be like "And that's them rubbing in why today sucks and you should feel bad!" Ain't nothing to get upset over, people! It's just a design language, not a contract with the devil. Anyway, sorry that was a long response but I get disappointed when this happens every... ten... years!


The "Future We Were Promised" titles annoy me too, less so because they're political and more so because it's foolish to think these corporations promised us anything with these designs, other than usability & eyecandy. I'm pretty sure they just wanted to show off the new HD displays and other hardware capabilities at the time. This sentiment is pretending to be rebellious while being naive at best.

Mon Nov 24, 2025 12:18 pm Angel designs I made a few nights ago :) Mon Nov 24, 2025 12:18 pm Angel designs I made a few nights ago :)

Mon Dec 01, 2025 11:36 pm Re: Opinions on new internet ? And new tech ? Mon Dec 01, 2025 11:36 pm Re: Opinions on new internet ? And new tech ?
My opinion on the internet now: The good stuff is drowned in an ocean of bad stuff.

Right now we have an absolute tsunami of AI-generated content, in the form of websites, art, and videos. It became hard to use search engines to find meaningful content when the first 10 pages are AI websites or other generic crap that you didn't ask for.

In the past you could land on forums when looking for stuff on a search engine, now it's really hard unless you look for it specifically, which is probably a reason why they are less popular nowadays. That and Facebook / Twitter obviously.

I hate how everything is monetized and full of ads, I hate every YouTubers having to rely on sponsors for their income because the greedy company who makes billions doesn't compensate their creators as they should despite the money they make.

I feel like the internet is becoming the movie Idiocracy where trash (but here it's AI slop) overfills the world (the internet) and people become more and more stupid, as people's attention spans go down and down because of addictions to more and more predatory social media algorithms...


Idiocracy.jpg

The bright side is that communities of good people still exist, there are still websites that care about your privacy, that don't try to make money off of you at every opportunity by selling your data. The Indie Web, on places like Neocities and Nekoweb is one example. Those still exist but my concern is that they are getting harder to find and that normal people might never hear about them unless we start talking about it. Some YouTubers are talking about it which is good, but I hope more of them will.

The clippy movement shows that people are tired of this crap but they don't know what to do about it, they never leave their centralized websites to go explore the web and participate in or create other community spaces. And this is why these companies are getting away with screwing us over, there's no competition anymore.

As for new tech, I think phones are all the same boring bricks now, but I don't really care that much because to me it's just a tool and I barely use mine. I do love that portable consoles are getting more powerful which means you can now play console games on the go, which I dreamed of as a kid. One thing I miss is translucent tech and more edgy designs.

Tue Dec 02, 2025 4:01 pm Re: so what are your fellings bout AI.. Tue Dec 02, 2025 4:01 pm Re: so what are your fellings bout AI..
by now, i’ve made my distaste for generative AI known. i believe it to be anti-human: the polar opposite to everything that makes humanity’s social bonds and workmanship skills so special. any joe schmo in their parents’ basement can use this tech. using AI is like playing a character class that does the exact same tactic every fight, with no other skill application; there’s only one way to use it, and it gets boring quickly

not to mention, it’s super unprofitable. for this tech to last, the big tech corporations shoving it down our throats better be raking in the cash… which they’re not. they are burning money. unless they start seeing a ROI, this tech is going to fail. and who knows what will happen next?

Sat Dec 06, 2025 11:14 am Re: I FREAKING LOVE CASSETTES!! Sat Dec 06, 2025 11:14 am Re: I FREAKING LOVE CASSETTES!!
I love them too, I even have a Walkman that I use to play them! The one thing is that sometimes it can be hard to find Type II tapes.

Wed Nov 19, 2025 12:42 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because… Wed Nov 19, 2025 12:42 pm Re: do you like 2000s tech because…
I don't really know how to explain this feeling, but 2000s techs for me carry this idea of "tech is fun", an ideaful vision of a technological bright future but still in union with humanity, when brands dared to try a lot of differents tech design, some of them were not pratical or quite useless, but that was fun, and this is an idea I still want to believe today with tech : it's supposed to be fun and to make you feel happy, and not being anxiety-inducing

Sat Nov 15, 2025 8:36 pm This Forum on Windows Vista!!! Sat Nov 15, 2025 8:36 pm This Forum on Windows Vista!!!
I installed Windows Vista on my Dell XPS M1330! It was hard enough as I had to install drivers, and Vista was unactivated so I literally had to do the phone activation (which worked!!!) Then, I installed Vista SP2 and put the Supermium setup onto a USB drive which I then plugged in and installed on the laptop which is how I am writing this now!
https://xatimg.com/image/rfyCEqi3yvGY.jpg

Fri Nov 28, 2025 10:52 pm Re: Digital Cargo Cult: How Zoomers Ruined Old Internet Nostalgia Fri Nov 28, 2025 10:52 pm Re: Digital Cargo Cult: How Zoomers Ruined Old Internet Nostalgia
come now, let this topic die. we don’t need to bring it back

Fri Dec 12, 2025 11:14 pm Re: Never have I ever… Fri Dec 12, 2025 11:14 pm Re: Never have I ever…
Never have I ever watched a movie twice on the same day

Thu Dec 04, 2025 3:01 am Reevaluating My Relationship with The Internet Thu Dec 04, 2025 3:01 am Reevaluating My Relationship with The Internet
This is a blog post from my write.as blog. I've technically shared this on a previous post, but since blogs had there own section I thought I would share it here officially. I also might share some posts here on occasion where relevant.

Blog Post: https://rambles-well-written.writeas.com/reevaluating-my-relationship-with-the-internet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AKA I need to to stop doom scrolling)

WARNING: I get a little vulnerable here in the beginning here. You have been warned.

I’m sure I’ve said something to this effect in the past, even on this very blog. But I think its time I start to re-evalutate my relationship with Tech and the Internet.

2025 has been rough for a few reasons. I can just gesture at “The Horrors” that’s been making me more anxious for months now, when hurt my back by, no joke, coughing funny, and then coughing too hard that hurt it again, fighting with my allergies, and work being… work.

During the summer and most of fall, I got super depressed there for a while. and during that time I was doing a lot of doomscrolling. At home, in public, and in worse in bed! This was especially bad on Youtube Shorts and on Bluesky. With YT Shorts I was mindlessly scrolling through videos for that dopamine hit, and Bluesky I was basically reposting ever anxiety that I was having.

It got so bad that I was laying in bed staring at my phone and saying to myself. “Oh god… I’m going to die with stupid black box in my hand and hardly achieve anything.”

What partially helped me out of this funk was playing DnD with some trusted friends, and help edit two videos for friends one you can watch here:
https://youtu.be/jTLSSyOp9Ho?si=BUHnsOtKDYl99gRL

Once I had flexed my creativity a bit, I knew that if I wanted to maintain this I had to make a change with my relationship with tech, and what I think the next year’s yearly theme will be: The Year of Ritual or The Year of Touching Grass.

I think I will talk more on that in another post and a video I’ll… probably make at the end of the year. We’ll see. For now I just wanted to write down my thoughts on how I will focus my energy

Limiting time on Social Media (namely bluesky)

I made a post on Bluesky mentioning how I was going have a “Soft Break” from Social Media. I said soft break because I still wanted to repost my friend’s post, and when I finally post a video I wanted to post. This because there were different times this year I was falling for ragebait, getting into long arguments, and reposting WAY TOO MUCH. The latter being really bad during that depression period. If I wasn’t reposting memes, I was reposting outrage, the current news, hot takes. Not only does that make my page a mess, I was fucking miserable dude, and I don’t think those that followed me was much better.

I want to make something very clear. I think it’s valid to be outraged right now. I think it’s valid to be angry, and frustrated, and want things to get better. These are all natural ways to respond to all this. Because it’s all Bullshit. But at some point… you have to step away.

And that’s HARD for me. I’ve always struggled with letting go. But I have to accept I’m not going to change the world by typing on an endless feed of text posts. To put that kind of pressure is only causing more anguish.

The more frustrated I became, the more I would post. I looked deep inside myself and asked. “Am I really making any sort of impact by posting about this stuff?”

It would be one thing it I was volunteer for an organization or even had an audience I could sway, or mobilize with my words. And even then, there are much more productive ways to spend that time and promote change than being part of an online flood of text. The scope’s too big, the reach is too small, and chasing validation from users who might largely be bots. So much effort for little gains.

I’m still passionate about what I believe, and I’ll likely not shut up about caring about the rights of my fellow man, and I’ve invested so much time into electoral reform that I refuse to not still bring it up, but I need to redirect that energy to something that won’t completely drain me.

So I made the decided that I’m going to focus on supporting my friends and trying to take the joy for genuine joy. I can’t support every cause, and ONE MAN cannot change the world. But I can at least try to help my friends not feel as alone, and try to help them get through this time of fuckery.

Also “Joy as Resistance” is a much more helpful phrasing than “Don’t worry about the world, worry about [YOU]” Because it doesn’t dismiss the concerns of people raising them, but recognizes it. Because even if you’re in the thick of it, even you need to recharge if you are able to. Because you can not allow those who wist to do you harm to steal that joy away. Because that nihilism is a slow, and insidious killer that robs you of your energy.

Yes I wanted to write that last bit because “Don’t worry about the world, worry about [YOU]” bothers me to my core anytime I’ve my current anxiety about the world to my boomer parents. Sure this isn’t direct political action, but I’m not pretending that it is.

The Need to Get Over FOMO

Now despite what I just said about helping my friends there’s another side of the coin that I need to address… And that’s been hopping onto just about every discord call.

Listen I love my friends. Both in the flesh and in digital. in fact dare I say they’ve kept me sane for the past 5 years. But I’ve also realized that I can’t spend every day in a discord call and still get thing done

There’s reasons for this that I can psychoanalyze, I don’t want to be in the position where I say something along the lines of “I wished I spent more time with my friends and family.” and due to a personal experience I won’t get into, I get worried about what would happen if I gave hanging out a pass. I have tendency to want to spend as much time with friends and family despite being an introvert.

But also… I have video I want to make, and responsibilities I need to take care of. I think in need to remind myself that so long as I’m not constantly turning down my friends for discord calls, or meet ups with my local* friends, I’ll always have another chance to join in. Balance is sort of key here.

This is also ironic when I am writing this up after having lovely discord call with said friends lol.

*and by local I mean… Near the GTA haha.

Playlists on Youtube – To Combat Decisions Paralysis

There’s many things that I need to do with my relationship to YouTube as a source of entertainment. One of the main ones is making playlists of songs for when I’m doing chores or other work that requires low concentration. I have tendency to go to the music recommendations and get hit with decision paralysis and I find the YouTube mixes to be not great. I need less time trying to figure out what I want to listen to and more time doing what I need to do. The easiest way is for me to just make a big playlist of all the songs I would typically listen to, and then just shuffle when I need to.

Now another approach would be to go old school and rip all my music, and make a local playlist of songs on my phone and computers. Maybe even be a little extra and make a self-hosted streaming service for myself and family or at least synced up with syncthing. But that’s a work in progress.

Forums – To Fight Social Media’s Pull

Before the centralized social media being the main hubs for communication on the web, there were BBSes/forums. Technically there still are plenty of forums, but they seem to be less used now a days when social media and messaging platforms dominate this space.

What I’m finding now with Social Media is that everything is optimized for doing big numbers, whether it be views, likes, or replies. All optimized for some uncaring algorithm. And it’s all effectively one big feed (filtered for you habits) to keep you on as long as possible. Good for consumption, not so much for communications.

Sure discord servers are an option, and I’m part of a handful, but they are first and foremost a messaging platform first, so it feels as though it needs to be an imminent response. Discord servers can be HUGE, and I struggle to keep up with them. Plus you still have the issue that discord is a centralized service which has its own problems. Forums are a lot slower, often focused on their niche or community, fairly smaller, and are run and hosted independently from some centralized company.

Ultimately that is why I decided to join a handful in the hopes to have generally better conversations than what I’ve gotten from bluesky, and twitter besides friends.

There are currently 4 that I am apart of which aligned with my interest:

Johto Times – A forums for a Pokemon Fan Zine https://forum.johtotimes.com/

Demodisc – Addie/Epos Vox’s Forum https://demodisc.zone/

Accursed Farms – Ross Scott’s Forum for his Channel https://www.accursedfarms.com/forums/

Frutiger Aero Archive – Forum for a site that documents aesthetics around the 2000s-2010s (dis one :) )

If anyone has a some recommendations I’ll happily take a look. :)

RSS – To Fight Some Temptations

I’ve talked about rss before. To be honest that article probably needs updating. Basically before people started following everyone else of social media pages, RSS would be one way to receive website updates. Many sites still have them such as for the news, but even youtube channels can be follow this way.

The reason for this is so I’m not relying on social media for most of my news, and to follow channels that might infrequently upload or I have a high chance of missing their content. I also wouldn’t mind following some more thoughtful blogs and web comics too!

Discipline and Awareness – Breaking Habits is Hard

Naturally, I could do all the replacement in the world. Yes, it’s bad to eat a full tub of ice cream in one sitting, but eating a whole bunch of grapes would yield similar effects. … At least with my stomach intolerant ass. Idk why that is.

It’s easy to slip back into just scrolling on my phone, or go down rabbit holes. There are 3 main ways I can go about trying to resist this:

1. Discipline Myself

“Just don’t do it bro” as said easier said than done. But if I don’t start off with me trying to intentionally get better about my use of the internet, and technology then… Well… Why am I writing this?

I have to try to resist the urge to fall into a habit of the doomscroll, or reply to outrage, or feed into my anxiety. Being mindful and trying to get myself to do other things is the whole point of this change.

2. Catching Myself

When that fails I need to train myself to be aware when I’m doing this. I’m mostly calling myself out for when I’m scrolling on YT shorts endlessly. When I’m in this state it is up for me to recognize what I am doing and then go to do. Something else. Whether that be working on the video, playing a game or even watching a movie.

To quote myself in that bluesky thread, literally is more productive for me to do anything else than be scrolling aimlessly on text or vertical video apps. Better I get up and do something else.

3. Rituals in Routine

This came up on a video by Epos Vox on his Lost Saves channel talking about Routines and Rituals. I highly suggest anyone who’s been struggling finding a spark in their adult life to give it watch. It’s very insightful.

If think its best that I try finding a little routine for myself. Not sure how that will look considering my work weeks look more like two weeks (long story), and I work on a rotation. However, I think it is becoming important that I have a “movie night” or a “go to store day.” Like I still need to watch the original Trigun guys. I’ve joked about this before but you’d be surprised how helpful it is to go outside guys. and interact with people? and have it be a good experience?! wild.

I’ll probably speak more to this in the “Yearly Theme” post I’ll make later. I will say I’ve tried to be more spontaneous in my adult hood, and while it kind of is the best way to be with my schedule, it’s felt aimless lately. I might als need dedicated days where I work on something for even 1-2 hours on my off days.

Will I Succeed Where I’ve Failed Before?

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to do something like this. After all… look how dead this blog has been for. I always get this burst of needing or wanting to do something to this effect, and then slip back into some pretty bad habits. RSS is something I keep forgetting to use as an example.

I don’t think there’s any magic change this time around either tbh. Just that I’m older, more tired, disillusioned with social media, needing that human connection again, needed to fight atomization of the human experience, not wanting to be as solitary anymore.

I am not going to make a declarative “This time will be different.” I’m fighting against years of habits I’ve accumulated for 20+ years. But, it is important that I try. That I be mindful of this. That make the effort. That rebel not only against my habits, but the corpos that want to rob me of all my attention and joy.

It is my life. I need to take back the agency for it.