I've been thinking about being online. As in: "Being" and "Online" and myself as an "Online Being".
There once was the "family computer/Your-father-needs-it-for-work". A mystical device that only my dad had access to, and was (apparently) very important.
Even then, the computer was a symbol of information (of yearning). Therefore, "being on" it was always in the back of my mind. There was a wider world that I didn't understand how to grasp. I wanted to know what was being kept from me.
It was a paradox, though. You had to be doing something "important" to be on the computer, taking up the one phone connection. But, doing important stuff was/is synonymous with being "important". And, how do you "be important"? You attain information to learn skills that have "value" (therefore, important). But, the information and the skills relevant to computer-stuff...are on the computer. So, you need the computer before you can "be" on the computer; it wasn't a given, way back when.
Really, all of this was just a smokescreen for "being an adult who physically owns things", but I didn't know that at the time. In hindsight, this could have all been resolved if my family made a habit of going to the fuckin' library. But, no. They're not...people-people.
I didn't start using the library for fun and actual enrichment until a couple years ago. That's how separated from public goods I was. Everything I've learned that is really important to me, I learned when I got my own computer and wiFi. Old enough to remember "before" and rue it's existence. Computers are fucking great. "Being online" has literally made me who I am.
The people and structures around me, no matter where I've lived, weren't gonna give me Queerness; definitely not Anarcho-Socialism or Disability Justice, either. Just the same as "before", I needed to know what I wanted to know before I could even be allowed to find it.
That mostly goes away with a search engine, with an unrestricted internet. You can just stumble across things, especially with social media. Run through a dozen "pages", then you trip and face-plant right on an epiphany. Huff it up your nose. That shit changes your life if you're willing to listen.
A post, a video, a meme shared across a hundred users reaches you and shifts everything off-center, without you actively looking for that to happen. That's happened to me many times. And, it made me more of a Person every time. I, literally, grew up on/because of The Internet.
And now, we're at a crossroads. The inevitable end of all things under capitalism (you know I had to). Everything "popular" runs like shit, is super exploitative, and is overpopulated with shitty people. Tech imitates life.
You've heard of BigOil, BigPharma, BigMedia and have, hopefully, understood the long-term impacts of those things. Now, we're at BigWeb, BigSocial, whatever. Now, as an equal-and-opposite reaction, bubbling underneath the surface this whole time, there's "SmallWeb".
"SmallWeb" is the concentrated efforts of people, who are very much "online", trying to separate themselves from corporate (very-rich-guy)-run platforms. Utilizing a lot of web solutions that existed before the 2000s, even. Things that still, fundamentally, work and are low-power.
Self-hosting and building their own websites instead of Squarespace, Wix, what-have-ya; minimizing the design for better speed and sustainability, or maxing out their aesthetics just 'cause; teaching themselves how the Internet actually works (a lot of web engineers and designers here) and how to revamp it into true, "local networks". Cutting out the middleman and their boss who desperately needs ad revenue to meet quotas.
The past...almost a year now, geez,,, has seen me trying to absorb as much surface scum as I can and recycle-poop a grand idea (that one got away from me, so sorry):
What tools do I have to put towards this? How much money? (not much lol) What kind of skills, how intense, and are there tutorials that I can actually follow? How big is this gonna get? What all would I put on such a platform(s) to project its size?
So, let's start with what I actually do/want:
The main thing to consider is, as an artist, how do I want to build an audience, nay, a community of "people like me"? Since, I don't just want people who stick around to listen to me.
I want to engage and be engaged with. I want reciprocation in love and art. Things like that can't be one-sided.
And, so, I need:
A good example of what I'm going for is 100 rabbits. An artist collective that's focused on building a platform (and programs) that center around what they actually do day-to-day, meeting their off-grid needs. Experimentation through adaptation. Not very large, bloated systems that require third-party software to be constantly updated.
See, in my long-term, I want to, actually, "be less online" in the ways I have been most of my life. Where "being online" helped me the most is figuring out how much (and just "how") I want to "be offline".
My biggest "offline" concern is food security, sustainable and well-insulated housing, and environmental regeneration (shit's kinda fucked right now). I want to be one of those small-time farmers who builds physical (recycled) and digital (low-tech) infrastructure and art. Half-and-half.
In my long-term: I, too, will be kinda "off-grid, low-power" (if only to help rebuild the "grid", wherever I am, more sustainably). Completely different to how I am now. And, I have to understand how that would work before attempting such a thing and avoid reliance on the setup and accessibility I have now.
If I want to put so much of myself "online", I (ironically) have to be fully-prepared to go "offline". Everything is temporary. Subject to terms and conditions. If I want to be "computer-ing" long-term, I better be perma-computing
The first, most obvious, thing is to host my own website. Neocities, while lovely and open-source, relies on someone else's labor to continue. It, literally, operates on the assumption that "other people" will maintain it perpetually.
I do not assume this. Also, the editor kinda sucks. Also also, the file size limits, even in the paid tier, won't be enough in the long-term (archiving).
It's good to practice how to code HTML/CSS from now and get used to updating a website manually. Just like I've been forcing myself to use the Terminal on my desktop more. And, in both cases (website and desktop [Kubuntu Linux right now]), I can backup the whole thing and open it on another computer in case of disaster.
When I'm ready to host (domain and all), I'll migrate my neocity code over. It's similar (but more problematic) with my mastodon.
I've seen and read about a lot of people who run servers for themselves and their friends or just themselves. No codes held to subjective standards by subjective admins (who may or may not end up doing a bigotry on ya) to worry over.
If people block your server, they block it just like you can block yours. I like this freedom, and I have connections (personal and work-related) on mastodon that I don't want to lose right now. So, single-user instance it is.
...though, I'm not 100% certain on using "mastodon", itself. The developer team seems to be more concerned with blending into the BigSocial infrastructure and their quirky cousin or somethin.
The infrastructure is, also, so bloated with people who don't know how to be on social media other than how they're already used to. I'd like to see everyone on smaller (100 or less users), safely-managed instances. Really focus in on the community-aspect of "communication". Y'know? Communes.
"Bonfire", "GoToSocial", and "Pleroma" are all options for the actual "program and features" themselves. As long as it connects to users I mutually follow on mastodon somehow, I'm cool with whatever takes up the least amount of space while balancing features I actually need to keep my experience positive (sans doom-scrolling).
Something that I, personally, have to consider, as a Trans Anarcho-socialist: harassment. Blocking (which on mastodon is a two-way "mute" and not a guarantee) means that other people can share my posts to potential abusers or said abusers can create multiple accounts to stalk me.
Remember that string of a hundred accounts that a post can find you through works the other way, too.
The main solution, from what I can tell now, is to create a closed system where your posts are "follower-only" in visibility (can't be shared on platform) and you screen followers with a fine-toothed comb...which still means nothing for posts being screenshot and shared separately. And, not great for an artist trying to actively build community (and sell my work so I don't die).
Hence, why I'm heavily considering a shift away from "mastodon as a program". Honestly, it'd be a great way for school campuses to connect students and resources if you could be certain posts didn't get engaged with outside the local server (again, there will always be screenshots and screen-recordings. be careful).
The "way" that I use social media has to shift to give myself the most protection possible.
There are other open-source programs that are for certain, unique purposes like Owncast for streaming; but, everything should fit onto a unique, backup-ready website that I build from the ground up. That's the gist of it.
If I can upload .txt, .epub, .pdf, .mp3, .flac, mp4, .zip, .tar.gz, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .md, and whatever html-based nonsense I wish...that's pretty much everything. And, most "static website generators" (like neocities, paid-tier) and other hosting providers do that already. I just need the space and the coding-ability to manage and customize it.
Fuck, I didn't even get to dialing back to old ways of doing communication and info-sharing: RSS feeds, IRC/XMPP chat, fucking EMAIL--why don't we use email more?! It's not "less instant" than anything else if you're not doing real-time text/video chat with multiple people at once.
Wtf-ever, I've got some spare hard drives and a couple old computers. deep breath First hurdle: How the fuck do I "build a server"?
Love,
Blue
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