The Internet is letting out. I’ve felt it for a long time, and I’ve seen it happen for longer. Over the course of my life, I’ve seen people leave the Internet. And I wondered when I, too, would leave it. Because, to me— this place was my playground. This was my life. And now, after 20+ years on here, I honestly cannot imagine anything else. And that frightens me.
I’ve tried to write this for 20 years, and I may write it again. Because I want to encapsulate these feelings, and put it all behind me. And even these words may one day be erased— I mean, certainly. At some fucking point, this website is going to be gone. Because that’s just the way of things.
There’s so much I wish that I could tell you. And there are so many things in my heart that I wish I could express. But even I cannot find the words for them. I don’t want to put them to bed, just yet. If ever.
There are things that I want to say. But, more than anything, I want to tell you something that I’ve been thinking of.
I’ve been thinking of Rotten dot com a lot. I remember all the things that they tried to do: the myriad websites they tried to put up, and keep up, and update. And they all struggled. And they almost all eventually… went away. I remember the Gaping Maw; the Daily Rotten; Dr. Sputnik. And their idea of something, called the NNDB. And how someone tried to get all of this onto Wikipedia. They almost entirely failed; but that is just how Wikipedia is. It’s shit.
Soylent Communications (the overarching ‘brand’ that seemed to tie everything they did, together), whether or not it still exists, it seems that their efforts online are no more. NNDB is still online; BoneQuest, the retitled “Jerk City”, is still there. And it probably will forever be: the latter, certainly longer than anything I hope to maintain. But I’d like to talk about what they meant to me.
When I looked at these people and what they did— when I looked at Leisure Town, and Ascii Art Farts, and Alcyone’s ‘oo’, these were some of the first websites I had ever seen. Take a look at oo: https://web.archive.org/web/19961018132945/https://www.alcyone.com/oo/ It’s so uniquely bizarre that, I don’t think anything else like it has ever been done.
And that was my Internet. That was the beginning of what I thought that the Internet could be. And, it inspired me: I wanted to be like them, one day. I wanted to have a myriad of websites, to the point where I had a similar web empire. Sadly, as I grew, and I aged, I realized something. I don’t have the spirit for it. This place worries me. I don’t like it as much as I should in order to accomplish such a thing.
And neither could they, really. I mean— they did all of that for the past 20 years. Until they didn’t. And now, even Alcyone— Crank dot net— the CatCam? They’re gone. As Durandal might say, even Rotten is no more. And while I am sad that it’s over, I honestly… am glad to see the end of this all.
I always wondered what would happen, at the end. Rands, interestingly, has one of the best blogs I’ve ever seen. He’s a fantastic writer.
And with that thought, I think I can put this all to bed.
What I Wanted
I’m not sure what I thought that I would accomplish. I got Verified on YouTube; and that should’ve been it. But still I pursue the gold checkmark on Twitter. I can’t seem to let that go.
I got my Google Knowledge Panel. And, even looking at it, now, it sickens me.
None of this was worth it. Why did I try so hard?
I wish I could put these thoughts in a filing cabinet in my head, and not look at them for another 40 years.