I’ve been finding myself missing the old Web, pre-social media, and I’m surprised by the extent of my sadness about it. I mean who cares about the Internet?
I spend a while marvelling at the primitive loveliness of Jaron Lanier’s website and recreating the website menu I had circa 2004, based on an anatomical diagram of a fish from a biology textbook. When I find the exact fish through Google images, I feel profoundly nostalgic. I spend some time positioning the links in just the right spots, remembering and agreeing with small creative decisions I arrived at fifteen years ago: “Blog” near the snout as if it were some kind of organ; “About” near the anus.
I also dabble with Tumblr and mention to Reggie by email that I’d like to find a sense of online belonging like in the LiveJournal days. “There is no belonging on the Internet now,” he says, “Only culture war.”