Are we here because of Nostalgia or Authenticity?

i completely understand people who feel nostalgia for the early internet vibes, but for me it was the guidelines. most of the internet is so hyperpopulated and used to make such disgusting things so i decided to go somewhere where there's fewer people and stricter guidelines that i vibe with.

I'm here cause I like customising stuff 

Authenticity, if I had to choose between the two. I was born a little too late to experience social platforms like MySpace in their heyday, but I spent a ton of time on various roleplay forums and game boards growing up. I think the current atmosphere of social media is absolutely toxic, beyond that I think there is a lack of personality that is lost on sites like Twitter and Instagram. I actually don't mind a lack of activity here, it suggests that I won't have to dread replies/posts that stoke flames for the sole purpose of ad revenue.. Hence authenticity. 

Not sure why I started my account here but I am loving the lack of bots. So I will say I am staying for authenticity. I swear its the lack of bots that makes this site feel like the old internet more than anything.

The authenticity and anonymity. I was around 12 when I made a MySpace and lovvveeeed the customization- although I’d been on forum based roleplay sites using similar HTML for a couple years, too. It was the popular thing to be scene/emo when I was on there and I wanted to fit in but I was poor, fat, and under the roof of a super protective, religious, and disabled mother in an area with dial up internet only. So I couldn’t listen to the music, afford/fit the clothes, or dye my hair/have piercings. It was a very cliquey culture and people were posting so many photos of themselves it was hard to not feel like you had to look that way, too. 

Sadly, when I think of MySpace I think of bullying. I had classmates and IRL friends on my page and it ended up super messy. One girl would be friendly in private and mean at school- I think because she was the only other white girl fatter than me and craved being accepted more than I did. After a fallout, I deleted her and wrote a blog expressing my frustration with fake people like her, being bullied for my sexuality and weight, and being atheist in the south where the thing to do was go to youth group. She logged into my account from her computer I’d logged into on before, added herself back (insane) to post a comment on it, then printed copies and passed them around at school the next day. I caught her doing it at lunch (very obvious as the blog was written in red text on a black background.. so emo) and was so upset I started screaming at her and wanted to hit her so bad but knew I’d get in too much trouble for that so I just threw my slice of pizza at her instead.

This was probably one of the first instances of schools (at least mine) having to deal with online bullying leaking into classrooms. The staff wasn’t sure how to handle it and basically said “you’re both in the wrong but we won’t discipline either of you- don’t do this again.” I was more relieved that I wasn’t punished than I was disappointed she didn’t get punishment. However, she got her friends to spam nasty comments on my photos, forcing me to delete them and make stuff private.

I kept it semi-active for maybe another year or two, because I remember being asked about my sexuality by a classmate at the private school my family put me in to get away from the people/admin who bullied me all through middle school. By the time I was 16 it was starting to go dark though. Then I used Tumblr until Yahoo bought it.

I’m proud of the young ones on here for staying mostly anonymous and not making it about looks over interests and community. I don’t have TikTok because it kept showing me minors (I cosplay and the community on there skews young) and while I recognize everyone’s existence, I don’t want to have an algorithm show me what a different generation is up to. I want to know what’s going on with people in my area, my age, with a similar background to me. So my FB and Insta are private and I’m continuously weeding out people I don’t actually talk to anymore.

I love long form writing (if you couldn’t tell..) and blogs/forums so I’m hoping to be able to use this site to express myself a little more freely without worrying about pissing my local bartender off or something haha.