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