numb3r_5ev3n

I screwed around in GIMP with some Matrix code stills before I finally had something I wanted as a journal background, which would look good and load quickly even on my phone. Belatedly, I started to worry if it was culturally appropriative. But if it is, the whole Matrix franchise is. That ship sailed a long time ago.

I am not sure what this code even says - the artist who created it for the first film took a lot of it from a sushi cookbook in 1998, no joke. For all I know, the kanji represented here reads 'BORN TO DIE, WORLD IS A FUCK,' which IMHO would be a best case scenario. IDK. Can someone who reads kanji tell me if this offensive or not?

[EDIT: this part is no longer relevant as I have changed my blog theme YET AGAIN.)

Second: something has really been nagging at me for the past few years, a question which drove me, like a splinter in my mind: what the hell happened to the internet?

Mainly, I'm talking about the mass adoption of corporate-controlled social media over the old platforms, which for the most part used to be created and controlled by a single person, or a small group as opposed to a large corporation. Like, remember when we used to be able to reach out to webmasters and community or forum admins whenever there was a problem on a internet community or forum we were a part of, and they would respond? In person? And take care of it personally?

For a long time, I have taken an interest in what causes fandom mass migrations between platforms. A recent article I read on the demise of LJ (which I am trying to find again so I can link it here) speculated that a large number of LJ users followed the MCU fandom to Tumblr in 2011, for example, though for me it was the Tron and Homestuck fandoms.

But lately there has been an idea that I have seen being kicked around in different circles online; basically, that for a few years in the mid-00s all of our technology, including our social media, worked perfectly - and then big corporations came along in the late 00s and ruined it for everyone.

For me, mid-00s era Livejournal (and its clones, like Dreamwidth here) are an example of what social media looks like when it is working perfectly, but for a few issues (like image hosting - having to use a seperate service to host images was annoying, and even now, the current hosting service here on DW could be improved.) But Dreamwidth has improved on LJ in a lot of ways, while staying true to the spirit of the original.

To a younger person, this might sound like the standard oldtimer grousing that nothing is as good as it used to be. But for us early adapters, the internet used to be a very different experience.



Like, when this guy blames corporate monopolies for the death of the "old internet" that we all grew up on, he's absolutely correct. (You never know these days if someone is an alt-right asshole on Youtube at first glance, and I was just cringing the first time I watched it, waiting for him to blame "(((globalists)))" for it the whole time, which thankfully didn't happen.) And though I don't agree with some of his opinions, he's more or less correct. Corporate monopolies and corporate-controlled social media platforms killed the old internet we all came up on as early adapters. And we let it happen.

To paraphrase DJ Khaled, we played ourselves. We allowed ourselves to become commodified.

Two weeks ago, I proposed to some of my friends the prospect of leaving Facebook Messenger altogether for a less predatory service, and got some resistance to the idea. These folks are not right wing. They are not there for the latest MAGA catechisms. But in most cases, they are there because it's their only connection to their family members who are still there for that. Or, to quote another friend "they got everyone's moms."

There is also the event calendar/birthday reminder. People are like "without Facebook, how would we remember birthdays or know what events are happening?" My answer was, we did before. We had other ways of catching up, of keeping in touch, of remembering important dates. Their answer: "Did we really?"

Then I started thinking, "how hard would it be to come up with something like that, something that is not tied to a horrible predatory system that commodifies people and warps their perceptions of reality?

And that was the moment I re-dedicated myself to learning how to code and program. I'm taking my control of my own personal experience of the internet back. I may or may not resurrect Cyber Alfheim, though I'm kicking around some new ideas that aren't tied to that old name and domain.

LiveJournal was created by Brad Fitzpatrick in his dorm room on a lark in 1997. He first disseminated server access to his friends, before opening it to the public in 2001. From there it grew organically into a blogging/social media platform that thrived for years, before Brad sold it to Six Apart in 2005; a series of miscommunications and missteps between its new owners and its longtime userbase eventually led to its decline. It still exists, but as a barely-recognizable shadow of its former self - owned and operated by a subsidiary of the Russian government, and subject to their censorship and control.

Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room, using pictures of women he stole from a campus database without their knowledge and consent, to rate their "fuckability." These days, Zuckerberg continues to be called out by both the public and the authorities for the way Facebook is being used to mine our personal info for profit, and as a vector to disseminate misinformation spread by trolls, botnets, and bad faith political actors; a practice that Zuckerberg and Facebook personnel have said that have no intention of trying to stop. But seeing as how it was predatory from its very inception, is it any surprise that it turned out the way that it has?

Current Music: Immuzikation – Columbian Cartel (MGMT vs. The Ting Tings)

I had a love-hate relationship with Tumblr before leaving it entirely. Nearly all the fandoms I was following at the time (ok, mainly TRON) migrated there fairly early on (2011-2012.) It really started to get a reputation as a haven for “Social Justice Warriors” during 2012-2013 onwards, and yet for all of the language based around social justice, people basically were behaving the same as their counterparts on 4chan, with all the  gatekeeping, harassing, attacking, shaming, and dogpiling that was constantly going on.

I agree with leftists like Natalie Wynn (aka Contrapoints) who say that people should be given a chance to change their minds and redeem themselves – which happens through discussion, not dogpiling. Dogpiling is great for deplatforming people, which I agree should totally happen in extreme cases – but when your idea of social justice discourse breaks down to “stop liking what I don’t like,” in regards to fandoms (which I was seeing way more than reasoned discussions about social justice) we have a problem.

No one ever changed their minds or adopted a more enlightened worldview because they were told to “go kill yourself.”

It started to be a less “how can we make a better and more just world for everyone,” and more “your fandom is problematic.” EDIT: and that was never really the point of fandom on Tumblr for me anyway; I was there mainly in the beginning for fanfic and fanart like everyone else, and the social justice discourse (and fandom gatekeeping thinly disguised as social justice discourse) just started creeping to the forefront around the end of 2012.

And I agree that being conscious of social issues is important! BUT – let people enjoy things. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense to call someone a fascist because you disagree with their fanfic interpretation of Severus Snape or Xehanort, especially with actual fascists so thick on the ground these days.

Anyway, now The Powers That Be at Tumblr have decided to crack down on anything NSFW. I haven’t been there in over a year, and I can still think of several fan artists I knew and liked who would be negatively affected by this. This is LJ Strikethough all over again, but for the Millenials and Generation Z. Which makes me wonder – is Tumblr about to be sold to the Russians?

LJ Strikethrough, for those of you too young to remember, was an incident in which LJ cracked down on “adult themed” fanart and fanfic in an attempt to “clean up the place” before the sale to SUP, the Russian company who bought it in 2007. It caused a mass exodus to LJ clones like InsaneJournal and GreatestJournal, and was the reason the bestest LJ clone ever, Dreamwidth dot org, was created.

I really don’t know what spurred Tumblr on to do this, but I can imagine that the migration to the Next Big Thing in social media platforms has already begun.

ETA: ProZD weighs in on the controversy (also Current Mood)

Mirrored from Cyber Alfheim.