getting priced out of my own digital neighborhood
For a digital native pushing 30, I'm surprisingly bad at social media. Publicly-facing personal webpages don't quite suit those who hate to be perceived.
I've always feared my digital footprint: clearing my browsing history on the family PC, even when I'd only visited the Cartoon Network website; deleting any tweet that could've potentially ruffled conservative feathers as I applied to colleges; setting all my accounts to private once I landed a teaching job.
Social media has always felt "cringe" to me. It's always been embarrassing to navigate the online world in a way that feels authentic, even when my audience consists of a mixture of family, friends, haters, and strangers on the internet.
Once, during a particularly emotional summer, I discovered the personal websites of people who presumably offed themselves. These individuals were active members of an online community that saw them as their authentic selves, every blog post.
I yearn to have experienced the internet in the days before analytics dictated everyone's every move. Bear came at a good time, I guess.
What little digital neighborhood I had developed in college, I've lost almost entirely. Twitter/X is littered with bots and slop and Instagram favors viral engagement. I've lost touch with a lot of people I'd never go a day without hearing or seeing from. Anytime I launch any social application, I feel like I'm lost in a new city.
Last summer, I participated in the Pink Decker Jam, and a ton of seemingly cooler-than-me strangers showered my submission with praises. Unfortunately, I was too shy to do the same for many of their great works.
I've been taking a pottery class and getting more interested in game dev. Concurrently, I'm thinking a lot about sharing my works in progress and influences online. I'm finally using my are.na account, for example.
Despite being someone chronically online, the anonymity of the internet terrifies me about as much as it beckons me.