writing and video/musings on online communities today
IS THIS ENOUGH???? BECAUSE
i’ve had enough. or if anything, i feel I've not got enough. ill informed, unprepared generally not ready. but is anyone? no one is, they probably think they are but the aren't because the worl’d not ready , especially for what i’m bringing. i like reading journals, articles especially art/web stuff, its good it’s interesting it makes me feel more informed but it’s just words not mine. i want my own words, the goal is to have something meaningful to say but fuck it someones probably already gone and done it. better. everyone is better. but that does not mean that it’s not important that i shouldn't bother. but i don’t matter anyways none of us do really. what matters is what we leave behind and we’re all leaving something, there is serious evidence of our existence at every turn. everywhere we go we leave a trace. and thats what i want. i want all of that in my life.if im going to use anything to make a point or not make a point or whatever, it might aswell be what everyone else has left behind, the forgotten. even though its probably been left for a reason, there’s no reason to forget, especially with the tools we have today. i sound like an old ass bitch. because i probably am an old ass bitch, but we’ll get to that later.
so we’re all in pain and thats okay. we all have longing sodade. we all have things we used to have so why not take advantage. how do i feel about all of this. do i feel if i don’t tell everyone i’m feeling. i guess this is me telling everyone that i’m feeling that I exist, making thoughts, ideas public/keeping what i want to keep private. because there are obviously things that need to stay mine, for me for others but whatever. that’s my choice? do i even have a choice. should my secrets just be public and will that take away their burden?????? the web is my canvas and my body is my brush and my life is what i have to give so just take it it. it is not mine anymore as much as i try to keep hold of it. the web the cloud, cyberspace has had it for years. i belong to the hyper realm the virtual plaza is my home to borrow words from my vapor forefathers, i belong to everything that has at one time taken parts of me. even if those places don’t exist anymore.
i used to be part of this thing, i can’t even remember what its called anymore. early days, long time ago. some kind of msn group thing where you’d pick your persona you’d make a page a profile. you’d pretend to be some anime guy or someone from a game or whatever and you’d just play that character. i was gene from outlaw star, he was a space bounty hunter on a show on cartoon network at like 3 in the morning and i’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. I CAN’T EVEN REMEMBER THE FUCKING NAME. there must be some record but to me its gone and that’s okay i guess. so you’d make your guy on a really rudimentary web design thing, minimal info, just pics i didn’t give a shit i just wanted to be cool. but it felt like being part of something, there was an achievement to even just getting on this shit man, fuck. i felt so good when i was uploaded. then you’d be matched up and you’d have to “FIGHT”
some other guy. it was all guys. fighting
was just writing text it was the most
boring part and after a bit i just stopped
going. going somewhere on the internet??
and frgot about it. didn’t even make any friends
but it was a taste of what there was out
there. communities where out there of
likeminded people who actually enjoyed
doing dumb shit which didn’t matter to anyone
it really didn’t matter and gave nothing to the world apart from the pleasure in a few people. people had power. people have power over things that are purely on the cloud and damn it felt good when that happened to you. things have changed. it’s okay now. somethings are better, but it’s a much more solitary experience, there is nothing i’m checking all the time. we’re supposed to be more connected than ever but fuck it doesn’t feel like it. fuck that track was shite.
maybe this is important. so. we are more connected than ever, we have all our “friends” at the touch of a button, but I feel lonelier online. there used to be places I’d check every day. every hour. and there’d be something new happening. i would make new friends,people i really wanted to talk to not just the people I was stuck with. now you’re stuck with those people all the fucking time. offline, online, same fucking people. there is no solace from real life. maybe i’m looking in the wrong place and maybe I just use the internet more conventionally now, and that’s probably true, but fuck it doesn’t feel like there’s anything out there i want to get involved in. WE get notifications on our phones when someone you don’t care about posts something boring and that’s it. ULTRA CONNECTED to the mundane. imagination is gone. i’m not making new relationships. this is something to explore. I’m not even complaining. maybe i am. i hope i’m not it’s just, different. it’s inevitable but it’s different and it’s been gradual and you don’t notice.
i got into this because of so called online communities. I am nothing without my past, i got into this because of a lot of things, pure fucking talent is the biggest one. what do i have that other web artists don’t?
charisma. but i digress. just the idea of going somewhere on the internet is super interesting, visiting communities, literal places where people congregate, chat rooms. big time chat rooms. coming into contact with LOCALS. the web is tourism, but is it still? the web feel now more like looking at old holiday snaps. looking at places that once were, ruined cities.
another one? why not.
i’m having a break leave me alone
“” welcome bk me = so we’re back on this shit and ready to mingle, hours of preparation have lead me to this point, today, tomorrow etc…
BUT lets not talk about the present or the future. THOSE ARE ALREADY in flux, for today i’d like to reminisce about the past and whatever that means and if that’s even a good place to go. this will be essential to understanding what is trying to be understood “”
§if i’m going to discuss anything it needs to be an experience at least vaguely familiar with, which would be much easier with something that i have actually experienced,but thats still lots to choose from. i want to be king of this plaza not just a subject, and i can only do this by taking it all in. THE PROBLEM HERE is the fact that we are now living in our own solo plazas. i’m not here to make it one, to unite people. i don’t give a shit about that/because i wouldn’t want many of them in my kingdom. I”M just here to rule, possibly over a dead kingdom but at least it’s mine.
so how does this all translate to what i’m going to make and how i’m going to make it, FULL transparencyy is key. or at least false full transparency, which if anything is more interesting. But i need some sort of avatar
“So the single most important feature that distinguishes a social network from a community is how people are held together on these sites. In a social network, people are held together by pre-established interpersonal relationships, such as kinship, friendship, classmates, colleagues, business partners, etc. The connections are built one at a time (i.e. you connect directly with another user). The primary reason that people join a social networking site is to maintain old relationships and establish new ones to expand their network.” Michael Wu
i am in no way interested in social networking, it’s invalid its an extension of offline life, a way of cataloging people/friends. while parts of it may resemble the online communities of old, there is always/often some sort of ulterior motive (to sell/to buy etc…) but this is not interesting. Opening doors to connectedness has only closed doors to freedom, we are ones not collectives. do i want to recreate the online community aspect? is that even possible. checking facebook/twitter etc. is akin to checking up on yourself, watching the news, i want to inhabit a whole new universe of ideas and existence. i’m not in a mind to actually do this, but am aware that this once existed and i was part of it.
i need a shower plz.
thats the mundane and as already discussed there is no pleasure in the mundane. I NEED TO EXPLORE> but i would like to explore within time as well as digital space. perhaps this must take the form of me coming offline and exploringg within myself and within my memories and finding a way to show what these experiences meant and how they felt. THIS IS ONE PART the newest/most interesting in the now part. i’ve been looking for a story/for an angle and this is it. my experiences are unique to me and they must be presented in a way that is mine. maybe not unique, as discussed already UNIQUENESS IS IMPOSSIBILITY??? but perhaps there is something i can say. it needs more research it needs work, i want to see if people feel the same but this does not need to be presented in a traditional way. i have stories of online life which have influenced my life in significant ways, the ghosts of web past or something gay like that. i am there and its possible to reconnect with those ghosts. i almost feel as if it would be beneficial to go back but also is it not better to have loved and lost, and there is deep loss. i feel like the world is at my fingertips now but in a different way, i can access and exist in any way I want but it’s still utterly and completely me. i am a liar and i want to be a liar but it is becoming more and more impossible. maybe lying is what fuels my creativity. i might be lying now, but that would be to myself. am I EVEN IMPORTANT. there’s an interesting journal entry here but the only evidence i have is in my mind.
but enough of me. or maybe enough of i.
because the essence here is the loss of the WE, the places we used to to visit. I am still a traveller, but a lonely one. my digital self is lacking what it used to have and i can’t be alone. talk to the people you remember. digital memories.
/
what im i trying to tell? is it a story or a…. come back to it
so this guy is a pussy - i’m not a pussy and i don’t give this much of a shit. but it’s still interesting. physical example, lets say you went to a bar every week, you basically lived there, your friends were there, the characters changed, moved on it was a world in flux but it was a world. people would come and go, come back, pair off, have fun, have shit time whatever happens in a bar. you're a regular, you know the barman he knows your tipple etc. so you go to this bar every single week, everyday, it’s an important place in your life, more so even than your home?? it’s where shit happens ok.
one day you go in the barman tells you it’s closing down. tomorrow.
or, even worse/different you go on holiday and you try to go back and it’s gone. physically gone, replaced by, nothing, barren land,
you catch up with sum of the chiefs u know from there, maybe go to a different bar for a bit, but the numbers dwindle and eventually even you can’t be fucked. its not the same so why bother and fair enough, it’s shite.
but but but, you all still had that place for a bit and it was chill, not especially life changing, not like losing your family in a fire or your house burning down, but a thing, that used to happen a place you used to go that you physically can’t go to anymore.
then you get a new job and only start going to the bar with people from work who are OKAY.
so that’s the web, that’s it. it’s a series of closed down bars, not unlike london ATM but that’s a different story. so some people remember this and i do and i don’t even think about it, interesting though. a strange strange landscape to exist in.
BITCHES THE PLAZA IS CLOSED
THIS IS ENOUGH AND ITS KING IS GONE
so open a new plaza? become the king? relive past glories? easy.
not so. it’s never the same. fucking saudade again. jeezus.
and that’s whats going on and frasier has been cancelled for like 10 years now.
