I still remember visiting my first webpage: LEGO.com. It was in 1996. Little me was nine years old, and if I remember correctly the page featured a picture of some bricks, no animation, and a little bit of information about the LEGO company. The internet, LEGO’s website, and I have come a long way.
My brother signed me onto the web then, over dialup. It was not AOL, like a lot of people had, but it was some local provider I think. We looked around for a few minutes, and then logged off, because dialup only worked over the phone lines, and meant no one could call the house. My mom, as ever, was an avid phone talker, and never wished to miss a call. It wouldn’t be until later that my dad would invest in a DSL connection for the house, allowing for (mostly) unlimited and simultaneous talking and browsing.
Around that time, I first learned about social internet use. There were these things called message boards where one could be a member of an online community and share a mutual passion for something, or many things. I found a Star Wars centered message board called BlueHarvest.net, which is now something in French and not that anymore. Back then it was where I hung out. It had been founded by a Swedish woman, and a lot of the people I met were pre-teens from Australia and Europe. We chatted and posted about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and wrote really bad fan fiction. Actually that was my first foray into sharing my writing, and I wrote an entire short story on BlueHarvest before I was in high school.
Now, of course, there are many social networks and message boards are, in my experience, not nearly as prevalent. There were all sorts of early social networks that I do not remember, but the big three (Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace) came out while I was attending various colleges and universities. I was never on MySpace, but Facebook I signed up for to stay in contact with a girlfriend, and Twitter was a fun thing that has since become largely toxic and stressful, though I still maintain an account there. Later I signed up for Instagram to share photos and find photos of things I enjoyed.
That, too, has changed. In an effort to monetize their networks, the overlords of social media have invited advertisers in and now do an incredible amount of work to drive views and clicks and interactions with the ads on their sites in order to feed the great demons of capitalism and profit. It has made the experience of social media much, much poorer. Half of my feeds now are so interlaced with ads, I can hardly see the posts of my friends, family, and those I follow. Facebook and Instagram in particular have become almost unusable. I despair and long for, at the risk of being an old man yelling for the kids to get off my digital lawn, the halcyon days of the internet.
But I have been made aware of a new-old green space online. Tumblr is a blogging social network where a user can post almost any kind of media they want, be it photo, video, text, or reblog someone else’s media. Tumblr was that in the early days, and it soon became full of mature content, which pushed away users who didn’t necessarily want to find that there. In a somewhat controversial move, Tumblr almost entirely killed their site by banning, or hiding, all of that content. People left in massive amounts, seeking elsewhere to post their risqué stuff. Now, in that same space made new, Tumblr has emerged as a haven for photographers that want a simpler, cleaner interface.
Lately on Instagram, which is full of reels, or short videos, which makes it difficult to see the photography that grew the site, there is a movement to exodus to Tumblr. At least for now, Tumblr promises that with rare exception, their users will only see posts from those that they follow. No suggested posts, few ads (which the user can hide with a paid subscription), and a clear focus on the content the user wants to see. It is so refreshing. I had a Tumblr from ages past, before I got started on WordPress for my blog that you are now reading. Apparently I never actually did anything with it because I had no posts and hadn’t set anything up, which I discovered when I logged on for the first time in years last night. I had simply created an account and then seemingly abandoned it. I think, if I remember correctly, that the old format of Tumblr was a bit clunky and difficult to use. Plus, the ads were atrocious and the experience was not easy or fun. Things are different now.
I’ve restarted my Tumblr, PhilRedBeard.tumblr.com, and have begun to post mostly old photos along with new photos as I take them. If it remains a platform I enjoy, and if more of the photographers I follow on Instagram sail to clearer waters, then I may (mostly) abandon Instagram altogether. I would not be sad to go. Even this morning, when I went back to Instagram to try to catch up on my feed, it felt cluttered, claustrophobic, and closed off. Tumblr, by contrast, felt open, inviting, and refreshing. And I even enjoy the process of composing each post and seeing those I follow.
I don’t know what the future of the internet, or social media, will be like. Will it be augmented or virtual reality based? Holographic? Some new technology yet to be invented? Almost certainly the latter will drive the far future, but the near future, I hope, will be better about removing toxicity, and allowing a free, safe, and fun exchange of ideas, creativity, and passion, no matter what format it takes. And also somewhat ad free. I know that hosting and maintaining a social media takes money, but I don’t think every spare pixel needs to be monetized. I hope Tumblr stays that way for a long while. It may not, and I may be compelled to migrate somewhere new, but that is getting exhausting and I just want a space to see what I want, and ignore what I don’t want. Is that too much to ask? Maybe. But for now, Tumblr doesn’t think so, and so I am happy to be there.
a simple man 