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i love my puter all my friends are inside it

this was prompted by a particular gemlog, but being in these... idk, modern tech / web critical circles i've seen this type of thing a lot, and have always had rather strong feelings about it, so may as well just write something now.

masqq — is 16kb enough?

i don't mean to assume anything, but the text-based-browser social-media-is-pure-distraction old-thinkpad crowd feels like a very particular, privileged demographic: older white, cishet men. people from the global north, who work with text processors and spreadsheets, and get to treat computers like a pure productivity tool.

and i don't mean to say they're using computers wrong or whatever, but as someone who's absolutely none of these things, reading this stuff makes me feel like meeting an alien. i guess that's how people feel when i say i don't have instagram though.

see, the thing is, as much as i hate what corporations are doing to the internet (i mean, i'm writing this on my gemini capsule for fuck's sake), modern tech amenities are a great source fo joy and comfort:

i use twitter and tumblr to web-hangout with my friends and post and see art and be around other gay and trans people (this last part absolutely crucial to my survival)
i use discord to voice and video chat with my friends (that i can't meet in person often)
i use my modern laptop to play video games (in particular a lot of indie ones) because they're an artform i enjoy, they're fun (duh), and once again i play with friends
i browse personal websites full of creative web design and images and fancy layouts and at times rather heavy webpages
i watch youtube videos. i listen to music. i download books and movies (legally or not)

and. i don't know man, i'm not trying to write a rebuttal or a big Thinkpiece or whatever here. yeah i do think the www should be useable without an adblocker. i do wish the AAA games industry wasn't a thing (or at least if they didn't make games only for cutting edge hardware — looking at you elden ring), i wish algorithm feeds didn't exist. we all have our internet utopias in our brains, and they're all different, and we should all be able to tailor our tech to our liking.

there's no true distinction between the virtual and the "real" world. it's all real, and the digital "distractions" are as much part of me and my life as the analog ones. sure, i could find ways to survive without them, but that'd be pointless asceticism. in short:

photo of a kitty in front of a laptop, text reads "i love my puter all my friends are inside it"

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