Internet

I always find it interesting when you read something that makes total sense, which helps you understand why people feel a certain way… and expresses something which you’ve never felt personally at all.

Take this piece, “This is what you’re nostalgic for“, by Jay Hoffmann. It’s about the discomfort I see from many elderly statespeople of the web: that some of the fun has gone out of it all. The whole thing is well worth reading, but I want to highlight the following key section:

“And for my small group of relative outsiders, the web fit right in with what all of the other stuff we were doing. So when I experience wistful anemoia¹ thinking about the earliest years of the web, I’m reconnecting with the part of myself that built a silly little website for a handful of scene kids I hung out with that might think it was cool. I think it’s that same feeling that grips others as well.”

And I begin to realise one reason why I’ve been so unsympathetic in the past with people complaining that the web has lost some of its magic. It’s because I never had that particular experience when I was younger. It’s describing an alien experience.

Sure, I have some very fond memories of my early years online, over two decades ago now. There’s the early years of Knightmare.com, where I found out for the first time that other people remembered that show as well as me. Or similar early days discovering other people were interested in TV presentation. And then there was talking to the same person across two different forums, meeting up, and ending up going out with each other. We’re still together. So don’t get me wrong: the web bringing odd people together is one I fully understand.

And then, sure, I went on to make things. I wrote for Red Dwarf fansite Ganymede & Titan for years, and set up general telly/film/comics/whatever site Noise to Signal. But it always felt, in the main, like I improved over the years, rather than there being some magical time in the past where I did the best work I’d ever do. I may have done less of it, but my writing in 2019 for G&T was surely better than in 2003. And my writing here on Dirty Feed in 2022 is most certainly better than I was doing on Noise to Signal in 2006, and that’s not even a close-run thing. It’s miles better.

The question is why I feel differently to many, of course, and that’s a difficult one to answer. The fact that I actually continued writing online when a lot of people found other things to do is one. Maybe the fact I never went into web development for a living is another.² I actually think the fact I never had kids is a huge factor; it means that I’ve had time to continue doing fun things online, rather than wistfully look back on the years when I did that kind of thing, and was forced to stop.

Or maybe it’s simply because I don’t have a lot of fond memories of myself when I was younger, and prefer the kind of person I am now. To look back on those early days for me is to look at wasted opportunity, not some kind of golden age.

But while I find it difficult to identify with Hoffman’s piece personally, that’s not to say I think it doesn’t have useful advice. Because I really think it does.

“I’m not sure we’ll be able to shake off this anemoia. We yearn to be outsiders again. And we won’t. And that’s ok. But, we might be able to direct this feeling to something worthwhile now that it has a name.”

“Outsiders” is a loaded word, and to be fair, the article is rightly wary of anybody aiming to become one.³ But I think Hoffman is right in that by identifying this feeling, people can use it to create something worthwhile.

Because while aiming to become an outsider is a bit icky, aiming to create something unusual, or for a very particular audience, is perfectly safe ground. It’s what I do on here all the time. Going into Red Dwarf‘s sets in this much detail is a very silly thing to do. Just as silly as Hoffman’s site from years ago, aimed at a bunch of scene kids.

But there are people out there who want to read it. You might have to work a bit to find them; it’s easy to get lost in the noise these days. But they’re still there. And that’s what we can all aim for. If you don’t think the web is fun enough any more, it won’t magically get better by sitting back with your arms folded and complaining.

Write or create something you want to see in the world. Everything else comes after that: how to get the right people to notice it, or indeed how to get the right people to ignore it. But without that initial act of creation, nothing else will happen. The web will only be fun if we make it so.

But we can. People do. Every single day. And you don’t need to be young and intense in order to do it.

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1. anemoia – n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known. ↩

2. Apart from a brief, year-long adventure running my own web design company, which ended in complete failure. ↩

3. “Bit of a maverick, not afraid to break the law if he thinks it’s necessary. He’s not a criminal, you know, but he will, perhaps, travel 80mph on the motorway if, for example, he wants to get somewhere quickly.” ↩

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Hey, here’s a list of some of the great things which have happened on Medium over the past decade! Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we?

Matter, Medium’s original flagship publication, joins the platform.

Matter last published on Medium in December 2016, and never said goodbye.

The Message — a self-described “anarcho-collective writing group” featuring authors such as Sloane Crosley, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Virginia Heffernan — launches on Medium.

The Message last published on Medium in May 2016, and never said goodbye.

Former Minnesota Viking Chris Kluwe weighs in on Gamergate for sports publication The Cauldron.

The Cauldron last published on Medium in February 2017… although they did finally say goodbye two years later.

We spin up the Medium Coronavirus Blog to share expert analysis, and The Verge dubs Medium “the best and worst” place for Covid-19 news.

The Medium Coronavirus Blog last published on Medium in June 2021, and never said goodbye despite the fact that this is an ongoing news story.

For OneZero, Matt Stroud exposes the CEO of Banjo’s neo-Nazi past, leading to his resignation.

OneZero last published on Medium in April 2022, and never said goodbye.

For Marker, Will Oremus explains why all the toilet paper went missing (and goes on MSNBC to talk about it).

Marker last published on Medium in April 2022, and never said goodbye.

When memoirist Elizabeth Wurtzel passes away in January, GEN publishes her final year, in her own words.

GEN last published on Medium in – guess what – April 2022, and never said goodbye.

*   *   *

I’m sure with some of the above, you might be able to find a goodbye post from someone who worked on them. But that isn’t the point. The goodbye should obviously be on the publication itself where everyone will read it, not hidden away in a post elsewhere.

So, why is the above important? Let’s take a look at Medium’s about – sorry, “Our Story” page:

“The best ideas can change who we are. Medium is where those ideas take shape, take off, and spark powerful conversations. We’re an open platform where over 100 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Our purpose is to spread these ideas and deepen understanding of the world.

We’re creating a new model for digital publishing. One that supports nuance, complexity, and vital storytelling without giving in to the incentives of advertising. It’s an environment that’s open to everyone but promotes substance and authenticity. And it’s where deeper connections forged between readers and writers can lead to discovery and growth. Together with millions of collaborators, we’re building a trusted and vibrant ecosystem fueled by important ideas and the people who think about them.”

Authenticity? Connections? Trusted? All lovely words.

But how can you be authentic as a publication, if you just disappear without warning? Was what you were saying worthwhile, or not? How can you build connections between readers and writers, if you suddenly don’t hold up your end of the bargain, without explaining why? And how can you be trusted, if… well, I think you get the point.

Time and time again, the above happens on Medium. And let’s be clear – a load of publications suddenly disappearing at exactly the same time is nothing short of hilarious. But it is also an absolutely fantastic way to make it look like you have utter contempt for your readers. Sure, just abandon them without even telling them what’s going on. Again. And I would point out that Medium isn’t just a place where normal writers show up, write, and then get bored and drift off; many of the above publications were edited by people who work or worked for Medium.

If you never bothered to say goodbye to your loyal readers, did you ever really care about what you were doing at all? If you don’t want to communicate with your intended audience, can you really call yourself a writer? And if that’s unfair to individuals – and actually, the weight of evidence seems to suggest that it probably is – what the hell is the institutional problem at Medium that allows the above to happen over and over again?

And for what it’s worth: yes, I do practice what I preach.

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Working in the pop culture mines can be hard.

Take this article on the 1990 Lucasfilm Games release Loom, written by one of my favourite writers, Jimmy Maher. As part of the background to the piece, however, he has to write about a different game:

“Lucasfilm Games’s one adventure of 1989 was a similarly middling effort. A joint design by Gilbert, Falstein, and Fox, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure — an Action Game was also made — marked the first time since Labyrinth that the games division had been entrusted with one of George Lucas’s cinematic properties. They don’t seem to have been all that excited at the prospect. The game dutifully walks you through the plot you’ve already watched unfold on the silver screen, without ever taking flight as a creative work in its own right.”

Maher is quickly picked up on this characterisation of the Indiana Jones game in the comments by Jason Dyer:

“I’m going to have to disagree with you here:

The game dutifully walks you through the plot you’ve already watched unfold on the silver screen, without ever taking flight as a creative work in its own right.

There is a *lot* of branching. There is so much branching I actually have a hard time thinking of a “classic-style” adventure game with more branching. (Fate of Atlantis, which is admittedly a better game, does a big branch into 3 routes at the beginning, but doesn’t really have any plot-driven branches in the middle.)

For example, you can play the scene entering the castle exactly like the movie (Indy punching the butler out) but it is quite possible to talk your way in. If you do so, it makes other things either.

If you recall the scene where they get the grail book from Berlin: it’s possible to not even lose the book and be able to skip the Berlin scene entirely.

There are quite a few endings as well; things don’t have to go anything like the movie.”

Maher takes the point gracefully:

“Hmm… maybe I just tried to do what Indy did in the movie, found it generally worked, and didn’t explore further. This in itself is of course another problematic aspect of adapting a linear story to an adventure game, but it seems I may have underestimated the game’s flexibility.”

The conversation then goes on to discuss plenty of the different scenarios and solutions the game offers, which is well worth reading in its own right, but I won’t quote any more from it here. My point here is not to dwell on the fact that Maher misjudged the game. Rather my point is to show how easy it was for him to accidentally do so.

Because Maher’s article wasn’t about Indiana Jones. He was specifically talking about Loom. But in order to do so, he had to give a bit of background. So he gave something a reasonable poke, thought he had the measure of it, and ended up misjudging it.

Now, if that happens with the main subject of your article, that’s on you. If the mistake had been about Loom itself, it would have been far less forgivable. But here, Maher runs into the problem we all do when writing about pop culture online. Which is, of course, the same problem that everybody has when researching anything.

Because there is a sheer combinational problem with research. It is unreasonable to expect that in order for someone to write about Loom, they also have to have deeply researched Indiana Jones, and learn about all the different routes through the game. Maher did the most anybody could expect here: he played the game, and formed an opinion based on that. You can’t expect anybody to do more, when you are trying to publish to some kind of regular, sensible schedule.

Sometimes, with tangents, you need to take a slight leap of faith. And sometimes, that leap will be misjudged. If you misjudge the central topic of your article, that’s on you. If you misjudge a tangent, you might feel a bit silly… but it’s an error which is virtually impossible to avoid completely.

Of course, there are ways to try and avoid the worst of these. Getting people you trust to proofread your work is of course one. But there is a limit to how much you can expect others to do when they’re not part of a strict, paid editorial structure. When you’re striking out on your own, such things are inevitable.

So have pity on your local pop culture writer, when we inevitably fall into these mistakes. We try our best, or at least those of us worth reading do. And please, correct us if you see something wrong. We can’t know everything.

And any decent writer will accept a correction with good grace.

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Over the last few months, I’ve spent far too long slagging other people off for pretending to write. I worry that some people have misunderstood my point on this, and that I think everybody should be writing shit for free on the internet. Needless to say, this is very much not the case. Most people have better things to do.

My argument has always been a little more subtle: it’s about people who seem to want to write, but put needless barriers in their way. It could be because they’re worried that their chosen topic isn’t “important” enough. It could be a bad site design which looks cool, but makes actually publishing your thoughts difficult. It could be the idea that you can “reclaim the open spirit of the web” simply by publishing a manifesto, rather than actually writing something interesting. If people who want to write could break past their own self-imposed obstacles to writing, then the net as a whole would be a lot better off.

But it’s amazing the excuses people will find not to do so. For instance, I saw this on Twitter just recently:

“I do sometimes miss my blogging days. But for it to come back, I’d really need some kind of directory like Technorati used to be. I want to follow who I know but also have some kind of awareness of the landscape as well.”

Now, would I like to see a brand new, modern blog directory? Of course I would. It would be a bloody great thing to have. I’m not the person to make it, but I wish someone would.

But here’s the thing: if the only reason you’re not writing is because you can’t find a decent blogging directory, you don’t really want to write. That’s fine: nobody is obliged to. But it’s not the lack of good directory that’s the problem. You can fill in the blanks it would provide in other ways: RSS feeds, social media, and the like. I let people know about my posts through Twitter, and learn about other people’s blogs and personal sites there too.

Is that perfect? Of course not. But what is?

If we want a lively, open, independent web, the one thing we can’t do is to sit and wait for somebody to provide it. And if you want to write, you have to write first. The act of writing and publishing is the important part. And that writing will inspire other things to slot into place. To fold our arms and say we won’t write until the blogosphere is thriving is simply an admission of defeat.

Nobody will provide your preferred way of linking blogs together, without having the blogs to link together in the first place. And the first step to improving the independent web isn’t to put together anything complicated. It’s to write something interesting, and hit publish.

We’ll sort out the rest later.

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