Hooray, internet

A little over a year ago, I appointed myself Washington Park’s artist-in-residence. I’m not sure the people who run the park ever knew I was their artist in residence, but it didn’t matter. A self-appointed artist in residence doesn’t require anyone’s approval: that’s the singular benefit of doing it this way.

I often think of the Noah Smith quote: “Fifteen years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world. Now, the real world is an escape from the internet.”

instead of “building an audience,” build a world. build a digital garden-ecosystem, that exists — first and primarily — for itself. a world that doesn’t need likes, traffic, subscribers, or clicks — in order to validate its existence.

build a world that the RIGHT people — your kindred people — will discover, will gravitate towards, and fall in love... See more

But here's the thing: being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement . Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have owners... See more

Today almost all creative work is digitized and essentially rented — lowering payouts, devaluing work, and redirecting the lion’s share of rewards to the platforms hosting the work rather than the creators themselves.

The web is not dying. The web is huge. The web is ever-expanding. The fact that the web is just the same 5 big websites is a fucking lie. It’s like saying the restaurant industry is the same 5 fast food chains. It is not. It’s up to you to decide to stop visiting those 5 sites and stop ingesting their fast food content.

Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it's become a lot easier. We can return.

I didn’t mind social media when it was just one aspect of the internet, and it was largely just for that first word, “social.” But it slowly became the everything place, and now it’s bite-sized versions of news, art, ads, politics, obituaries, health advice, crimes against humanity, kittens, low-rent humor, messages from friends, soft-core porn, go... See more