So, I was just listening to Dear Hank and John Episode 427: Ghosts to Fix the Housing Crisis, (backup link), and one thing that has come up a few times on that podcast is both Hank and John sort of talking about how much they dislike the Social Internet. Not only that, but they truly believe the social internet is just bad for humanity, and there’s just nothing to really be done about it. Hank mentions he’s had ideas before about how to make better places online, but realizes that no matter what he does, it’ll eventually turn into a bad place.

And I just get really tired of this rhetoric. The idea of "things are just bad and there’s nothing to be done about it". I see it a lot with tech - people hate what tech companies are doing, or subscription services, and just sort of throw their hands up and go "well, that’s just how it is I guess". YouTuber Jaiden Animations put up a video recently where she was largely just venting, but throughout it I just kept thinking to myself "there are some really easy solutions here". One of the complaints was that she bought an automatic litter box cleaner, which requires an app to use. Similarly, if her internet goes out, none of her lights even work because they’re all smart lights presumably. But like... they make regular litter boxes. They make lights that don’t need internet access. She also mentioned needing a router so going to the store of her ISP (Internet Service Provider), and they didn’t carry routers at the store. And my first thought was "Why would you get a router from your ISP? Just go to Best Buy and get a generic one". Another issue she mentions are subscription services, specifically with Adobe. But there are so many Adobe alternatives these days (Affinity, Davinci Resolve, Blender, Reaper, etc.) And like, obviously I get she’s making the video to just vent, and it points to larger issues overall. But again I just get sort of tired of it.

Part of me worries I’m becoming that guy where any time someone has an issue with Windows they go "Just download Linux! Of course there’s about a million things you’ll have to learn, and it breaks constantly, but it’s so much better than Windows!" (I’m being sarcastic here, I know it doesn’t break that often anymore). But then, I also don’t feel like a lot of these alternatives are that hard or bad (at least, here in the US).

On the Social Internet

What prompted me to make this blog, though, was the Dear Hank and John episode. I see so many people recognize social media is bad at the moment. And when they talk about Social Media, they mean things like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc. Pumped full of ads, algorithms that prioritize engagement (which typically leads to showing you things that make you angry), click bait, etc. etc. I’ve stopped using Facebook for the most part because I saw more ads than I saw posts from friends. And while I agree, those sort of social media sites are bad, and I think overall do more harm than good at this point, I don’t think there’s no solution here.

A better way

Provided by Xaya Emeris

This section is going to have a lot of things I’ve spoken about before. First up, I want to mention that I agree with a lot of what Kurzgesagt said in their "The internet is worse than ever - now what?" video. I think for the internet to be an enjoyable place for most, we need to go back to smaller online communities. I believe that having any sort of big, online space for literally everyone, will lead to companies trying to prioritize retention, in order to sell more ads, which leads to showing angering content. As Ava talks about in her "the definition of insanity" blog post, it’s really easy to just remake current social media. A lot of people seem to think the issue with Twitter are the people on Twitter, and if only there was another site, that acted like Twitter (bluesky, mastodon, etc.), but didn’t have those people on it, it would work! But... it doesn’t really. Pretty much any time we see a social media site get that big, with everyone in the world on it, it devolves into a toxic place. Even my beloved Cohost mentioned they weren’t sure of a way to make a sustainable platform that would cover costs, without turning to something like ads eventually. They sure did try other options but, ultimately, failed.

And so, accepting we can’t just recreate Facebook but better, we need to try something else. That something, I believe, is smaller internet communities, ideally built around your own website. I really believe that a better use of the internet would be everyone having their own site, or blog through something like bearblog, and staying connected through the use of RSS feeds. Articles like "We Need to Rewild the Internet" and "Where have all the websites gone?" talk about the need for human curation on the internet, and sort of rebuilding those connections, on a smaller scale.

As an example, I’ve started to participate in the Bear Blog Carnival, which put me in touch with a bunch of other bloggers through a Discord channel. I’ve made a lot of new connections and friendships from simply finding out about the carnvial, and joining with my own website/ blog, than I have in a lot of other spaces. The pixel art image above is from Xaya, who I met on that discord channel! If you go searching, there is a vibrant community of folks making their own websites, and blogs, and trying to recreate a better internet. Hell, I just learned about a new site called Cyberspace (which is what the image for this post is from), which is trying to be a text only social media site basically. It’s a cool concept I think.

A note about moderation

I’ve had this discussion with in real life friends before, but I believe these small communities need strong moderation to keep them worthwhile for people. I have a friend who believes that, any social media site, should allow anyone to interact with it. So you should be able to say whatever you want, to whoever you want, on any of these platforms (within legal boundaries). I, personally, believe this is how you end up with Twitter, and people exiting it en masse because of how toxic people are on it. From my friends perspective, that is fine, as you can always go somewhere else. Of course, if those trolls / toxic people follow you somewhere else, then they should also be allowed there, and you just have to keep finding new places and try to outpace the trolls / toxic people, I guess.

I, personally, thinks that’s stupid. I agree there should be some options online where everyone can interact, if they want to. But I also believe that if I wanted to create a website that was only for Italian Americans I should be able to do that, and kick off anyone who isn’t that. There’s a quote or post from online I’ve seen circulating recently which basically points out "If you serve both wolves and sheep, you’re only going to get wolves". This touches upon the Paradox of Tolerance, which basically states if you’re tolerant to the intolerant, then you will eventually only end up with the intolerant, as they will have gotten rid of anything else.

An example story someone made to illustrate this point, imagine you own a bar / pub. You serve average folk, until one day someone walks in who is a clear Nazi. The way they dress and act clearly show this. However, this particular one has manners, and isn’t causing too much of a fuss, so it’s easier to just serve them and go about your day. Slowly, over time though, he brings his friends, who slowly get more and more rowdy, and have less manners. When it gets to the point of being too much trouble, at that point it’s too late, as everyone now knows you as the Nazi bar, and there’s so many of them you can’t really throw them all out.

This is why, to me, I believe online spaces that want to have communities that allow for minority groups (LGBTQ+ folks, people of color, etc. etc.), they need to moderate out people who try to go into those spaces that have views against those minority groups. Obviously disagreements can happen, but if you’re trying to have an online community for gay people, for example, you can’t allow someone in who believes that gay rights should not exist. And if one does show up, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with them being kicked out of that community, because they can always try to find a community that shares their view elsewhere online. Or, hell, make it yourself! But being told your opinions are not appreciated somewhere isn’t persecution or a "First ammendment violation" or anything like that. It’s just you being told your opinion will not be tolerated in this part of the internet.

That said, I’m also okay with people who have opposing views, but joining those groups to try to either change their own view or understand things better, as long as they’re respectful and come at it from a place of wanting to learn, and not a place of trying to shame others/ put them down.

How to get started

So, after listening to me ramble, you want to try to be apart of the indieweb, or at the very least try joining smaller communities. What can you do to start?

First, I’d recommend making a website. If you’re just looking for text blogging, or don’t use that many images / can store them elsewhere, I’d recommend setting up a Bear Blog. You write posts with markdown (which is easier to learn than HTML/CSS), but does give you some CSS controls if you end up really wanting to customize things. It also comes with RSS feeds by default. You can also go down the route I did, and setup a Neocities site, though that will require you to learn HTML, CSS, and how to make RSS feeds. Lastly, you could use a website builder like Wordpress or Wix to make a site. This will be the easiest option, as it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you, but tends to also be the pricier of the options if you go with any of their paid plans. They do usually have some free plans to start with.

Secondly, I’d look into finding an RSS feed reader to use. I liked using The Old Reader before I started selfhosting Freshrss. This will be used to follow other peoples sites/ posts you want updates on. It’s basically a timeline created by you for just the things you want to see. And, it shows it to you chronologically, rather than algorithmically.

A side note here quick, one of the reasons I get annoyed with Dear Hank and John, and their "there’s no good options for the social internet" approach, is they could be doing things already to make the internet better. For example, they have a newsletter through beehiiv called We’re here. It’s a nice newsletter usually about positive things going on in the world. This would be a great thing to follow via RSS. Beehiiv even has the capability for you to use RSS feeds with your site. This would be something that would help make the web a little better. Do they do it though? As far as I can tell, no. I would say maybe they just don’t know about RSS feeds, but I reached out to them about it months ago, and got no reply.

Thirdly, I’d try to find online communities or groups that share a similar interest of a smaller, better, web. Indieweb does a lot for example, but there are also places like the Bear Blog Carnival I mentioned earlier. The Website League is made from folks who left Cohost to try and continue it’s legacy in some ways. One thing I did too to find people, is find their website buttons or their links page, and check out some of those sites to see if there’s any you want to follow. You can find mine over on my Cool Stuff page.

Wrap Up

I know creating a website is more effort than just creating an account on something like Facebook or Twitter. But I also think if people are going to keep complaining about the system, but not do anything about it, they’re doing themselves a disservice. I get wanting to vent about how much things suck but like... try to change it then, y’know? Start with the man in the mirror. Put one foot in front of the other. You gotta start somewhere.

---