How to Internet

(this was originally a bulletin, sorry if you saw it already)

We've become so conditioned to instant gratification through notifications we've lost sight of the creativity and healthy discourse that is only now possible online by moving to the periphery. If you, like me, long for the olden days of the internet, you need to accept that the amount of time the Internet is actively courting your attention is massively lower at places like this and you have to accept that's actually a good thing.

I recommend keeping your SpaceHey blog updated at least once a week. No comments? No kudos? No problem.

I recommend starting a website and learning to code it creatively and fill it with the stuff you like and want others to enjoy. No traffic? No problem.

I recommend making videos and posting them wherever you can. The obvious choice is that big video sharing site owned by Google, but you don't have to create them for that ecosystem. Embed them on your blog or your website. Now views? No problem.

To live a fulfilling online existence means dialing your expectations of exposure back enormously. Pre-web, in the BBS days, a small BBS would only have a node to allow one user at a time. You'd check back once a week and see someone had left a new message and it was THRILLING.

Back when I had a GeoCities website, I had a counter at the bottom (because everyone did) and it hit 1,000 visitors after months and months and it was cause for celebration.

If you make a video that gets 100 views, that's 100 people who've now seen your work. I made a movie with my friends back in the day on digital video tape and we showed it to 30 people at once at a party and it felt like one of the biggest accomplishments of my creative life.

Be yourself (whatever that is) online, and use the Internet as such: for yourself. People with similar interests will find you. The modern internet is designed for you to show yourself off aggressively, so everyone else does, too. Then you interact and it tracks you and you get served ads and do all the work for free. But you can still find a fulfilling online existence if you remove that frame of mind. 

That's my belief. If you want to exist in the wonderful world of the peripheral web, you need to disabuse yourself of the idea that you will get instant and abundant feedback on what you create. Create for yourself first.

Thoughts?