Rebooting My Uplink to the Infobahn

reboot-blog indieweb www

I’ve stumbled into a new project to consciously reshape how I use the internet, and I’m still stumbling through it, so I’m writing this to define it a little more and give it some terms and goals.

How it started

TBH I’m always doing this, or at least adding this to my lists of “goals for the year” or moving it to the never-forgotten-but-always-sidelined tranch of my Todoist where things like maintenance and care and health end up. But this time is special!

I think it actually is because I’ve got friends this time! In the past six-ish months, the number of conversations I’ve been having with people about leaving big social media, or improving one’s relationship with the everpresent “online” has increased dramatically. So much so that I posted a write up to answer some friends’ questions about what they could do instead of instagram, which got a lot of good responses. At the same time, my wife and our friend Matt helped me crystalize another always-thinking-about-it project – to run a workshop to teach fellow artists how to make their own websites. The response to that was far beyond what I expected, the results were super cool, and I’m currently working on how to make it a more regular thing. Obviously I’m not the only person noticing this – the zeitgeist is strong.

So far we have:

  1. Always thinking about doing it
  2. Got exited that friends are thinking about it too!

For me, the other big thing is something that feels like way more of a change for me than than it probably looks from the outside is that I started a Real Software project with my friend Nik, and it’s in support of the independent internet, the World Wide Web over Apps. We’re building an open protocol to connect independent sites called Octothorpes. This page has octothorpes on it – hashtags that connect to other independent sites using the Octothorpe Protocol.

I recently caught up with an old friend from art school, and he asked if I was still programming. Which makes sense, because when we were roommates I was struggling to teach myself basic code skills, thinking I’d need a job when I graduated into a global recession with a degree in painting. Back then it was not the default thing to spend a lot of time at home on your computer. In 2008, it was worth remarking on. And I remember how hard it was, to sit there for more than an hour or two, looking at the screen.

The plan worked, just barely, and I’ve worked on the internet since then. Overall it’s probably been a benefit for my painting practice, letting me afford a studio and all, but I have always been wary of the tradeoffs of maintaining two very different practices, and curious about their unexpected ways of complementing each other. That curiosity turned into a whole thing itself.

Anyway, it was one of those moments where, in a small way, I saw how other people see me and was able to compare it to how I saw myself. “Ním is a guy who does programming” is something pretty much anyone but me would say without hesitation. I mean, it’s objectively true, and has been for 15 years, but honestly until we started Octothorpes I wouldn’t have accepted that as a label. I always said “I work on the internet” or “I make websites” but never that I am a programmer. Partly out of deference to the skill of my friends who Definitely Are Programmers, but partly out of my own discomfort with where it lands in my own life and creative practice. In a way that’s silly, but it’s also correct when compared with the place in my life that painting has. Unless, of course, you measured those economically :/

But I care about Octothorpes, and I care about my Memex, and I dedicate conceptual labor to them like I do my other practices. I’m just finally accepting that.

So I guess the next step is

  1. Write code for 20 years, and finally accept that you’re a coder.

It’s not a coincidence that this is coinciding with a time where everyone else is grappling with the influence that Online has over, uhh, Offline and everything else. So, in short:

  1. Realize shit’s fucked and I might be able to help in some tiny way.

And then, like anyone who has tried to eat better, drink less, exercize more, etc, as soon as I felt the effects of some basic changes, I realized how distorted my sense of normal had become. So:

  1. Realize shit’s fucked and I might need help myself

This is simplifying a lot – I was already pretty far along the spectrum of control over my own use of technology. I’ve used an android-based e-ink tablet for almost all my longform online reading for years, I’m typing this on my 14-year-old Thinkpad, but I also have an iPhone and a Macbook, and I probably would even if I didn’t need them for work. I quit facebook five years ago, and rarely posted for years before that, but I still use Instagram because that’s where the artist are.

The point is that even being relatively well-versed in all this stuff, knowing the terminology I need to search for solutions to problems, I still deal with an uncomfortable balance of ever-changing tradeoffs between devices and services I need to work and stay in touch with people, and that the presence of The Feed in my life was much more deeply rooted than I thought. I keep having experiences where that becomes clear. Quitting Facebook. Quitting Twitter. Removing Instagram from my home screen. So maybe that’s the last one

  1. Realizing that I’m not in control of The Feed, it’s gonna take a lot more effort to get there, and that it’s gonna feel really different when I do

Ok, that’s a lot of feels and personal thoughts and not much editing, but, hey, that’s the grand tradition of Blogging. Maybe it was relatable?

Concrete steps

Ok, how do I turn all that into a clear project with actual goals.

Step 1. Start this blog.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

  • I need a defined milestone or goal state, because it’s an ongoing process. I need to be able to make this a Project and say I did it before I think of more stuff to do.
  • I want to document the process and the tools I use so I can be in dialog with people
  • I need to accept that it’s messy and it’s never going to be perfect.
  • Consuming the internet has different requirements and hazards than working on it, so I should distinguish the two

Ok, so let’s call this Reboot #1

Consumer goals:

  • Significantly reduce or eliminate time confetti and scrolling
  • See more art than garbage in my Feed
  • Browse more than scroll
  • Transition off of one or two services that I have ethical qualms about using
  • Interact directly with friends more
  • Consume whole foods more than processed foods.
    • a thoughtful 1500 word blog post being, in theory, more healthy than 1500 words of microblogging
  • Set up calmer interfaces
    • My friend Amber does a lot of work with the ideas of Calm Tech, and I try to keep them in mind for practical choices
  • Just, like, be aware of why I’m reading or browsing about something, and hopefully reclaim some time from unnecesary stuff

Todos from these goals

  • Create a place to see a bunch of contemporary art in one click
  • Set up a friends-only email address
  • Separate work and personal browsers
  • Consolidate non-art RSS feeds and how you read them
  • Audit all your social media accounts and decide about the experimental ones
  • Audit devices
  • Write out why you use any of these things

Contributor goals

So those are all about consuming the internet, and I’m sure I could, and should, make a similar list for contributing to the internet. In the interest of getting this posted, I’m going to take some time to think about those and post them as a follow up. Also some are deeply intertwined with Octothorpe features I’m working on, so they need a second to get ready. So far I have two

  • Rewild native plants – what went extinct as Feeds moved in (ie posting your art to your on website)
  • Start this blog which means
    • pick an octothorpe to use to organize your posts

Ok, that’s enough. Let’s start this blog! The octothorpe will be reboot-blog.