💾 Archived View for tilde.team › ~smokey › logs › gemini-is-for-everyone.gmi captured on 2023-11-14 at 08:20:07. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2022-07-16)
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While reading through the current discussion on antenna on the topic of the "Offline" Movement. It seems this topic in particular resonates with many people. One jarring thing I came across is this statement by aprilnightk:
"like all of us, I'm a child of early 90's who remembers the times "before" but is just as trapped into the web of today."
This caughtt me off guard, mainly due to that "like all of us" part. I am NOT a child of the 90s, I was born in 99 and spent my childhood in the early 2000s. Yet im still here, part of the smol net. Is being familiar with the sound of dialup or knowing what a BBS is, a requirement to be sick of the modern day of the internet? Was I just never informed about these requirements? Obviously not, so why the assumption that everyone interested in the smol/ offline was born in the 90s or older?
I jest, april probably didnt take much thought into that one little sliver of wording when they were writing. Wether it was hyperbole or a bit of assumption, I highly doubt it was an intentional ageism.
Still, now I cant help but wonder about the real age group percentages of gemini (and to a lesser extent gopher and finger). Just how much in the minority or majority am I age wise? Does gemini present a good mix of different age ranges or is there a heavy bias in one group. What age is the oldest geminaut? The youngest? Does it even really matter?
The only way we could get those statistics is through a hypothetical poll capsule and a decent sample size of geminauts responding to it. I dont think thats going to happen any time soon, so the best we can do is make assumptions. And you know what they say about assumptions, they make an ass out of u and me.
If you put a gun against my head and asked me what my assumptions were, I would spitball an average range of 16 to 60. probably a heavy bias towards late 20s to early 40s. People who are old enough to remember the "good old days" and have a real nostalgia for the grass roots culture of the early net, that group probably makes up a major demographic.
Im interested in the non-generic reasons people young and old flock to the smol movement. Sure, youll almost always hear "The internet is bloated and corperatized" or "Im interested in privacy respecting alternatives to the data collecting machine that the web has become" But what about the non-generic blanket sweep answers?
Maybe "I want to be in a small community of like-minded people where my voice can be heard." or "Choosing non-mainstream options makes me feel unique." is as accurate an answer as any others. The basic "human beings are social animals and desire external validation whether or not they want to conciously admit it" 101 stuff. The smaller the community, the more important the member.