it's 2020 (2)
in december last year, i started thinking about starting a new blog or creating a website or something of the type for myself. at first i experimented with squarespace because it’s so beautiful and easy to use, but there's no free version available (what a mistake). then i played around with my old wordpress account, but the interface is still so clunky and unappealing that i gave up after a day.
then i remembered! tumblr exists! this lovely blue microcosm full of stressed out millennials that don't care that the website is dying because it reminds them of a simpler time, that keeps me coming back year after year even as it fades into obsolescence!
so here i am. at first i wanted this to be a bit more of a professional "look what i've done!" type of page to generate freelance gigs, but meh. i am not a commodity. i am a person who sometimes does things: events, marketing, design, words and photographs. i do these things mostly for fun, but occasionally professionally - more deets on my linkedin lol. i'll share things here sometimes, when i feel like it, and if you feel like there's a way we can work together - call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me! i'm v open.
if not, then i'll just post here when i feel like i have something to share.
today, the main thing on my mind is: how we share things online. it's on my mind today because i'm here, because i'm doing this, and also because of this conversation i had with a friend last night.
we were sitting on the steps at clarke quay around 11pm, surrounded by teenagers, feeling old, and reflecting on how things used to be when we were younger (as you do when you're on the cusp of 30 and confronting the passage of time). and we started to talk about what it means nowadays to post something online, when there's a deluge of content being generated every day. none of it really matters, and nothing is all that significant. most of what you post today will be forgotten by tomorrow (if not 10 seconds after it's viewed). for the most part, you're just shouting into a void and the only advantage is that sometimes, your friends shout back.
when we were teenagers, posting things online used to be so significant. the things you posted had meaning. when you shared a song online, you weren't just doing it because the song was such a banger, you were using the lyrics to send a subtle message to that one dude in malay class who needed to get a clue! you'd analyse blog posts to figure out what they meant by that one line at the bottom of the post that didn't seem to be alluding to anything, but actually meant everything!
it was a weird time.
for the most part, i honestly thought i'd graduated from such activities. "i'm two years away from thirty," i'd think when such thoughts occur to me, "i'm too old to be playing such games."
but let's be real. of course i still care when that one person views my story, or likes my post. of course i pay attention when a friend drops off my radar, and pops back up again unexpectedly. of course i wonder what someone means when they post something that seems like a subtweet, and of course i wonder what they're talking about. should i care about these things? i don't know. but do i? of course. and i'm sure everyone cares about these things to a certain extent.
this isn't something that's exclusive to teenagers. it's human nature to be curious, it's human nature to notice what the people you care about do online. denying that you care is silly and futile. these things do matter - even if they matter very little, even if they only matter to you. and it's okay to care about these things.
i'm only writing this now to remind MYSELF that it's okay, because for the longest time i denied that i cared about these things and deliberately tried not to pay attention, because i thought i had "grown past it". i haven't. and i'm not sure that anyone out there really does.
