So we meet again, email newsletter. With your limitless wordcount, relatively controlled audience, independent pages… just like the good old days.
Except not everything about the good old days was so much better. Obviously, I’m here, writing a blog the old fashioned way, and by that I’m vouching for it, but if we really are watching the death of social media begin to unfold in front of us and we started to once again create our own islands in cyberspace, I hope we remember to keep the good, because for all of their flaws I love the way communities online unlock new media and give everyone the opportunity to be a collaborator, bringing what they have to the table someone else built. I love that you can go on Tiktok to find someone playing the backdrop of a song to sing, and the way fans of a streamer can come together for massive projects, and don’t get me started on how much fan fiction has impacted my life.
And honestly, I’m skeptic that this will work. Are people really sick enough of social media that we’re truly going to see long-term change? Are people really going to be willing to clink a link to check their email to click on a link to give writers so much more of their time than 140 characters?
It seems more likely to me that we’re seeing a final death of written media online. Well, maybe not fan fiction - because where else are you going to read about your OTP from a show that ended 18 years ago smooching - but any writing less niche as raw text. Youtube has already shown the power and reach of the video essay, Tumblr is made for images, and news outlets are scrambling to lead reader’s on with rambly clickbait that gets them to scroll enough to see multiple ad that often take up more space than the prose.
Woops, didn’t mean for my first post to be so negative. For what it’s worth, I plan to keep writing. As the title “Adventures in Hypergraphia” implies, I have too much to say to stop. To me, writing feels like a deep breath after a long day of drowning that nothing else can replace. I like to stream and draw and do all sorts of random things, and some of that will likely end up in this newsletter too, but when I write is when I feel the most capable of being myself. I can prepare each sentence with all the time I need, so the words that come out are the words I wanted. I can turn everyday events into stories.
Will people still come along for the ride all these years after the fall of Livejournal? We’ll just have to find out.