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Longer Posts

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    Following the lead of several others, I wrote about the 15 Books that Most Impacted Me. What an interesting self-reflective exercise—you should do the same (ping me when you do).

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    Early Twitter: the golden age of social-to-IRL community

    Early Twitter was amazing for social community building—the absolute golden era of social media, imo.

    I was reminded of that when I ran across some photos from a coworking space’s anniversary event that happened 14 years ago today.

    Here’s a photo of about half of our #cwmn group—aka, Co-Working Monday Nights—which was just a dozen of us who had self-organized on twitter to show up at a particular coffeeshop after dinner every Monday to get some work done while also getting in some social time.

    It was one of many social groups that formed here in Phoenix via twitter in those early years—back when it was primarily used for social purposes, not content distribution, newsmaking, doomscrolling, or mindless entertainment.

    These “tweetups” were free and open to the public, and you generally introduced yourself by your twitter handle, not your actual name (unless your handle was, say, “rscottjones”).1 The only real thing that connected us together was primarily that we, well, used twitter and lived in metro Phoenix and were willing to meet other people who did too. You just ran across a tweet about something and decided, yeah, sure I’ll go to that.

    There was #smunch, a monthly Saturday morning brunch that often took over smaller restaurants. And a series of Phoenix Friday Nights get togethers scattered across the Valley, including #dtfn (Downtown Friday Night), #evfn (East Valley Friday Night), #wvfn (West Valley Friday Night), and #nvfn (North Valley Friday Night). I co-hosted that last one, #nvfn, with someone I met at a monthly #smcphx gathering (yep, another tweetup). #FirstFriday gathered twitter users each month for Phoenix’s art walk. And #NightOwls, a #cwmn-like event held at the coworking space this photo was taken at. I also participated in #commpose, which was organized by copywriters but seemed to focus on writing in general. There were also plenty of one-time or irregular events, such as the charity event #Twestival, plus other minor get-togethers that were advertised nearly exclusively via twitter.

    I met soooo many people during those events, many of whom have remained dear friends—people I truly love. It was a big personal stretch for me to just show up to random events where I knew no one, but there was such a welcoming vibe at each of them that any initial angst disappeared almost immediately.

    I miss those times.

    1. It’s funny how those usernames have stuck. I was texting with @design_gal and @clowerpower this morning, and am grabbing bbq breakfast tacos with @wayneswhirled tomorrow morning.ngr) ↩︎

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    On This Day back in 2017, I visited what was then-claimed to be the World’s largest and, perhaps, oldest living organism.

    While it’s since been relegated to second largest living organism, and understood to be closer to 16,000 years ago, this video will still blow your mind. (read more)

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    While reading @mlanger@mastodon.world’s post today about taking a photo of her boat in front of the Statue of Liberty, I was reminded that small social networks are everywhere (still). They’ve always been here—and even with federation and interoperability—small, theme-based communities are just better communities. They always have been.

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    Homemade music videos

    I’m a fan of homemade music videos for ridiculous songs.

    Not the influencer-quality videos you can make today, with a fancy iPhone and great editing apps. Nah, I prefer the ones from yesteryear where the tools had no auto mode and people weren’t routinely filming themselves for Reels or Tiktok.

    I came across a great one yesterday when I went searching for a song I like that occasionally pops up on an Irish drinking sing-along Pandora station we enjoy. It’s a short but catchy song called The Gates by Da Vinci’s Notebook1, which details an IT disaster via “comedic a cappella” (is that a thing? I guess it’s a thing).

    So I went on Youtube, searched for the song, and a high school student’s class project from 12 years ago came up. It’s hilarious in all the right ways, including easter eggs in the credits.

    🎥 If you have 2 minutes, have ever lost data while using a Windows computer, and want a few laughs, click this link.

    That kid seems fun, doesn’t he?

    The video has probably overtaken my previous favorite: a much more poorly produced family tribute video for Weird Al’s song “Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota."

    As an official twine ball aficionado—yes, I’ve visited all four of them (each of which involves a fun story2), and even owned BallsOfTwine.com for a while (a never-quite-launched project dedicated to fun Roadside Oddities)—I really loved that video.

    It’s extremely amateurish, which is a critical component of its charm. The camera work is terrible, the “actors” aren’t exactly hitting their lines, and the husband clearly owes his wife immensely for putting up with the whole thing.

    And of course, it’s an entire damn song, a seven-plus minute song, dedicated to a Twine Ball, so of course I’m in. Did I mention that it seemingly wasn’t even produced for distribution? Nope, this was a passion project, pure and simple. A “Great Family Adventure,” as they called it in the opening title. The only way we can watch it is because the sister of the protagonist3 uploaded it to her own Youtube account.

    It reminds me a lot of the personal websites many of us built before social media platforms took over personal expression online (then enshittified themselves).

    I hope we don’t lose dare I say triumphs like this. But I suspect that we have, as modern apps + our cultural fascination with publishing highlight videos of our lives + the casino of virality + side hustle culture probably dustbins most uniquely pure hobbyist efforts like this.

    I mean, it’s sorta like the whole endeavor of making a twine ball, as I mentioned in an article written about the song (Medium link):

    Jones felt this too, especially compared to the heavily advertised presence of other roadside attractions. As he explains, “That’s got to be a hobby of love to start that. You don’t start wrapping a twine ball thinking you’re on to a million-dollar business venture. That’s not how that starts. I really appreciate, especially in today’s side hustle culture, that there are big endeavors people do just because it’s a fun hobby to them, it’s something that they just enjoy doing.” Just like the video that inspired him to go in the first place, the important element of the twine ball is the passion, not the product.

    If you’re pursuing a similar hobby of love, really anything of that sort—and especially if it’s some wacky shit like a twine ball—I’d enjoy hearing about it!

    1. If you enjoyed The Gates, you might also like two of their other songs: the also catchy Another Irish Drinking Song, and perhaps Enormous Penis, their “hit.” ↩︎

    2. Ok, it just occurred to me that my twine ball quest is literally briefly mentioned enshrined in the US Congressional Record, which is absolutely fucking hilarious. Also, damn I need to write a blog post on each of those first Twine Ball visits… ↩︎

    3. That makes the video sound way fancier than it is. ↩︎

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    I wrote a post about how our bowling team’s shame trophy came to be.

    #blogging #bowling #trophy

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    I ran across this photo I took during a quick fast food stop in a small rural Texas town during a road trip last month. It reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about during my travels the last few years, so I wrote a little bit about it today.

    #blogging #america #ruralamerica

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    I use RSS as a buffet, not a task list

    I ran across this (very well done) post on hating RSS feeds yesterday.

    It’s really well done and I appreciate the underlying notion: rss feeds can feel like “work” to be done.

    But I’ve always viewed them as a buffet from which I can sample. Not as a task list. A place to graze.

    I have absolutely no desire to consume everything on the buffet. Yes, I have some things I’ll eat nearly every time. But in general, it’s a broad selection from which I can sample, depending on my mood. I have no obligation to eat it all, and in fact, that might be considered unreasonable.

    The stuff I always put on my plate first is in one folder. The stuff I don’t eat that regularly goes into another folder, from which I only occasionally peak. I even have feeds from my friends' blogs that I never read, as they’re not on topics I care about, or are a bit too influencer-y for my tastes. But I’ll occasionally pop in to mark those as read, giving me a second or two to scan for a (rare) life update or something surprisingly interesting.

    There’s simply too much to consume in the modern era to ever consider some grouping of content as a task list. If your default is to view that as such, I think you’re going to feel especially overwhelmed in the modern world.

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    Reposts from my Hey World blog

    I reposted several posts from Hey World to my personal website.

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