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πΊ
This is one of my favourite videos on the planet, and it makes me profoundly sad.
This low-resolution, choppy screen capture of a beautiful, coincidental bit of resonance someone wanted to share with the world has accidentally become a time capsule for a time at which the internet was still so exciting and creatively exhilarating. When you could just realise this sounded cool and share it with the world, and people would see it when they got home from work or school and booted up the computer in the corner of the living room for thirty minutes or so at a time. It was clunky and slow and poorly designed but it was mesmerising.
The internet was more beautiful when it was uglier, and it was more freeing when it was less convenient. It used to be an exciting Place to visit literally held together by passion and innovation. Now it's an ever-present machine that wants everything from you in return for, what? Mr Beast?
Sharing this here feels right because this niche little community of lovely, smart, kind people who want to share their joys with the world is the closest thing I've felt to the Old internet since... well, since the old internet.
Sorry I got really sad looking at the old Windows XP login screens on Tumblr earlier today and it made me feel really existential
This low-resolution, choppy screen capture of a beautiful, coincidental bit of resonance someone wanted to share with the world has accidentally become a time capsule for a time at which the internet was still so exciting and creatively exhilarating. When you could just realise this sounded cool and share it with the world, and people would see it when they got home from work or school and booted up the computer in the corner of the living room for thirty minutes or so at a time. It was clunky and slow and poorly designed but it was mesmerising.
The internet was more beautiful when it was uglier, and it was more freeing when it was less convenient. It used to be an exciting Place to visit literally held together by passion and innovation. Now it's an ever-present machine that wants everything from you in return for, what? Mr Beast?
Sharing this here feels right because this niche little community of lovely, smart, kind people who want to share their joys with the world is the closest thing I've felt to the Old internet since... well, since the old internet.
Sorry I got really sad looking at the old Windows XP login screens on Tumblr earlier today and it made me feel really existential
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We miss chronological feeds. We miss forming community through internet friends and groupchats. We miss being fans and spending our lives obsessing over our faves. In an attempt to bring these things back to the surface, we're spending more time on open forums and less time with algorithms. So...... neocities blogs (brittany's here & sameera's here) and discord and perfectly imperfect. And more than anything, we're trying to spend time reminiscing about these days of early spirit and community. Maybe if we talk about it enough, it'll work its way back into existence. There's a reason why everyone misses it so much.
- Brittany & Sameera
- Brittany & Sameera
Oct 1, 2024
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Have been thinking recently about how thoroughly Tumblr's value and uniqueness was destroyed by Yahoo (and ultimately, Automattic, its current/also WordPress owner).Β
Back in the day, there was a group of four music industry friends all living in Manhattan who would play a game called "Music War!" when they had been out all night sloshing around Max Fish and other LES dives -- you'd stumble to someone's apartment (everyone lived in the same East Village 'hood) and they'd play you a track they thought you'd never heard before, essentially "stump the experts." This drinking game moved to Tumblr as Music War! and thus begat a really cool site -- post single tracks of music you love, explain why, pass the baton to the next person.
Membership in this little rotating musical book club came and went but basically pivoted around three key players (Mize, Witz and CB) who were there at the creation. I joined later, after the gang had all scattered from NYC and a "Meet Me in the Bathroom"-era scenester DJ had also been part of their mix for a year.Β
Occasionally one of these posts would strike gold among the Tumblr cognoscenti (I linked to Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own Me" and the LGBTQ community lit it up for a minute) but for the most part it was just a lovely little online extension/expression of our slumming-it-Saturdays game.Β
I miss the old Tumblr. π I also miss the gang. Music War! was the virtual bar where we met for drinks and a listen.
Feb 20, 2024
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πi know itβs kind of a circular response but literally putting in any url is so fascinating . i forgot what youtube used to look like in the early 2000s and it was a delightfully fun little nostalgia tour:)
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Spent twenty minutes following him upstream taking pictures he's so pretty
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Jan 16, 2025
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I just finished season 1 and I mean what I say when I tell you that work attire has never looked so good before or since.
I'm also a massive lesbian but im sure that has nothing to do with why most of my example pictures are of Scully
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