Tom TomorrowDec 16, 2022
welp I haven't really been posting much here at the new site but since the purge is going down at the old one, thought I ought to start arranging my furniture and hanging my posters over here
Show threadPeter Principle

@tomtomorrow It's definitely starting to feel like the old blogging days over here, circa 2004-2005.

So I guess there is a silver lining to a fascist takeover of a major social media platform...

Dec 16, 2022 at 1:41amWeb
Show threadMirishuliDec 16, 2022
@tomtomorrow @jobsboils Isn’t it weird to realize those good ole days really were good? 🌻🍻
Show threadPeter PrincipleDec 16, 2022

@MiriShuli They weren't so good if you were in, say Iraq.

But, for just a brief time -- post AOL, pre Facebook -- there was a crack in the wall of corporate/oligarch media control. And it was a lot of fun pushing through it.

Show threadMirishuliDec 16, 2022
@jobsboils I made lifelong friends on the AOL boards. My kids were toddlers and we could post during the day, as the kids and life allowed. We carried conversations on for days and days. We solved the world’s problems together there. My very best friend in life was found on those boards. I have long missed the ability to have meaningful and sustained conversations with learned and cogent folks. Plus, having 500 characters means we can write complete sentences, thus we don’t sound so terse.
Show threadPeter PrincipleDec 16, 2022

@MiriShuli I have nothing against chat boards -- or even AOL, particularly -- but it was a "walled garden," as are Facebook and Twitter.

The blog scene of the early '00s had such a heady freedom to it. So much room for creativity and community -- long form, short form, journalism, opinion, fiction, poetry, the beginnings of open source intelligence garhering. And a momentarily level playing field on the web.

It couldn't last, of course.