the thing about making a bunch of friends on the internet is that you can log in one day and they are gone. sometimes it’s a tragedy. sometimes they just forgot their login and you just don’t see them again. sometimes it’s just the social media site is “over” and they’ve moved on to greener web pastures and forgot to tell you.
I’m sure this is a unique problem only for people who spent a bunch of time on AOL/MSN messengers, Geocities, LiveJournal, MySpace, Blackplanet. any space online where you just gave a username and vague personality details. you MIGHT have been able to scan in a photo someone took of you. eventually you would hook your digital camera up to a computer and download a photo. a terrible crop with a friend’s disembodied arm still around your neck. or just steal one from someone else.
you maybe meet a handful of people in person but mostly you just know every detail about each other’s lives without even hearing their voices. like I’ve had this blog for what, 50 years? if you were here from the get go, you’ve seen my kid go from diapers to middle school. a bunch of manifestos. the thousands hours of television I’ve consumed and complained about or obsessed over. remember when I would post pictures on Wednesdays?! people would yell at me if I didn’t.
as I watch the collapse of Twitter (see also: America…) from the inside and the Thread/Bluesky/Mastadon/Spill/TBA apps try to rise from the ashes, I just want to wake up one day and know where to find my internet friends.
and why won’t someone just bring back Google+? everyone go dust off your blogs.