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,,,Hey,
Have you been here before?
[[No. What is it?|Intro]]
[[Yeah. What's new?|Basic2]]
last updated early Monday nightGreat, thanks! So as you can see, you navigate by making choices on where you want to go or what you want to read next. For now, this page will keep to a conversation/interview type of format in order to keep things simple.
I intend to use this place for posting and writing about things: interesting things I've seen or read, little thoughouts from throughout the day... things I would otherwise post on social media. To start things off, though, do you have any questions about the place?
[[Why will you post here instead of on social media?|Why no social]]
[[Tell me about your choice in using this format over a normal blog.|About the medium]]
[[I don't have any questions.|No questions]]
[[Let's skip introductions. Tell me right now what's new.|Basic2]]It takes two to tango; this isn't your average blog. You'll have to give me something to work with! Otherwise, it's like I'm talking to a wall. So, can you indulge me and play a long a little?
[[Sure|Agreeable]]
[[Nah|Exit]]There is a lot of really bad writing about people choosing to take a "digital detox" or leave social media, instead pursuing more "authentic" life experiences and "real" relationships, as if social media and technology is destorying human relationships. (Look up "the IRL fetish"). I definitely don't want to give off that impression, and I'm not actually leaving social media; I've just decided that I'm over the social media structure of broadcasting messages to a wide audience--messages that are then archived, indexed and searchable forever.
I've now spent over a decade on Twitter (I made my account midway through high school!) and have amassed over 19 thousand tweets. This makes me deeply uncomfortable; not because I really feel the need to "hide" anything I've tweeted, but I don't like a ghost of my past self existing forever. I feel the same about Facebook, where I also opened an account back in high school. I had to turn off that feature that shows you year-old (or longer posts) from the current date because I felt too uncomfortable seeing my cringey old self snarkily saying something to present-day me.
But in general, I tire of the Facebook newsfeed, like everyone else. Last year, I unfollowed every single person that I'm friends with on Facebook, opting to use the site solely for groups related to my interest and to use Messenger to chat with friends. I've since re-followed about a dozen people, but almost 600 of my friends are still banished. I've also seriously cut down the amount of people I follow on Twitter. I used to be very connected to posting to social media, but now I just don't care. Maybe this is partly to do with the constant barrage of covfefe tweets and meme-ified news where everyone is blasting the same rehearsed opinion. Or maybe it's just not the hot new thing anymore! I don't know!
One encouraging thing I've found is that I'm not alone--I think <a href="http://www.yahoo.com">Taylor Lorenz</a> is correct in her prediction that the majority of social media users will turn inward towards closed groups and communities rather than continue to post to public streams. I've spoken to a few people who share my sentiment that groups are really Facebook's only redeeming feature. The ironic thing is that groups aren't innovative: they're just fancy-looking web forums like we would use before social media was even a thing.
I'll still consume on Facebook that way, and I'll still read tweets from a smaller list of people whose opinions or goings-on I care more deeply about. But I think I'm "over" the newsfeed and handing over an indexible public biography to corporations for them to profit from, and would appreciate a more freeform and open place on the internet than rigid algorithmic feeds. Making this kind-of-but-not-really blog is my post-9/11-era version of a Geocities site or MySpace page.
Maybe I should add some gifs and a guestbook...
Was there something else you wanted to know?
[[Tell me more about using this medium as a blog|About the medium 2]]
[[Let's talk about something else|Basic]]This page was made using <a href="https://twinery.org/">Twine</a>. Twine is a tool used for easily designing hypertext stories; most Twine projects are game-like text advenures or choose-your-own-adventure stories, though you can use Twine to easily create any sort of hypertext experience. In this case, a blog-like experience.
As you've already experienced, readers can explore the content in a non-linear way. Rather than scroll through a temporal succession of archived blog posts, you can meander among a set of related topics and ideas. Unlike a blog or social media feed, nothing here is archived in perpetuity; information is kept here only for as long as it seems relevant to me. For example, this introductory text explaining the blog might last for some time, but once this page is no longer considered new or novel, it may be erased. Therefore, this page might be more akin to an ever-changing bulletin board. There might be days where not much is different; meanwhile, other days might have a radically different set of content.
At some point, as I become more accustomed to writing this, text might change based on the order you move from topic to topic, providing a more unique reading experience. I think that's the most interesting thing about this: having freedom to make creative and unexpected experiences.
It's possible that, because none of this will be archived (not here anyway--any third party can just periodically download the HTML file and save it), and because this exists outside of social media, that I'll mostly be screaming into a void here. But I'm looking at this as a writing exercise (both to experiment with Twine and to take time out of the day to reflect a little more formally on things), so I'll take the cliche artists' phrase that I'm "doing this for myself, not the audience."
Was there anything else you wanted to know?
[[Why do this project and stop social media altogether?|Why no social 2]]
[[Not really... let's talk about something else.|Basic]]Of course, you probably don't expect to ask a blog questions--or maybe you don't care about the questions provided, which is one of the challenges of writing something like this. You have to anticipate everything the reader would want to know or do!
Speaking of writing hypertext things like this, have I told you about how I wanted to make a text adventure work of poetry in the past? Depending on who you are, I might have.
[[You told me already.|yes story]]
[[I haven't seen you mention it.|no story]]You're probably like, "What happened to that?" Because I probably talked about it a year ago... and then never again. I end up coming up with and dropping ideas all the time. Nowadays I'm mostly secretive about things I work on because I know I will probably abandon them before things materialize! But then it seems like I'm just doing a whole lot of nothing.
Anyway, I found the experience to be more overwhelming than I anticipated. I got as far as drawing out a physical map of the setting, trying to design each little node and doing a little writing here and there of the places--but then you had to consider things like, "How does one 'take in' this space when approached from this direction versus that one? What if they come here after doing this activity--is the space changed? Will time pass and affect the place?" I had grand ideas of ways to interact besides just passing from one place to another: maybe the reader would discover and pick up artifacts that would have an effect, or maybe they would even run into a character they would have to fight, like in a game! But the project felt too big.
[[So what are you doing instead?|Instead hilde]]
[[So you're making a choose-your-own blog instead?|Instead blog]]Let's not worry about it then. Basically, I had an idea to make a choose-your-own-adventure poem (whatever that is), and started but abandoned it because the entire process felt overwhelming. I'm still doing something similar, though, but at a smaller and more manageable scale. We'll see if that takes off!
In the meantime, I'm also hoping that keeping a sort of wierd, non-linear blog will be good technical practice. I spend all this time doing little writing drafts on paper and planning out the actual explored space, but very little time actually playing around with making nonlinear narratives like this blog. I hope to edit this daily (or every few days?), and want to try to take more experimental measures here, introducing other forms of media or ways the reader can interact. But to start things simply, I'm doing this easy-to-write, easy-to-follow conversational format. Because as new as I am to writing this, you're probably just as new to having to navigate through it all.
[[Tell me more about the medium.|About the medium]]
[[What is your current creative project?|Instead hilde]]
[[Let's talk about something else.|Basic]]So right now, I am still trying to make a similar thing but on a smaller-scale. That project I mentioned before was too big and grand. Rather than try to design an entirely new story, I'm adapting a much smaller one. Because there's already a loose plot--so to speak, it's more like a "situation" or a general conflict idea--the story is relatively simple and the area covered (because a text adventure involves mapping out and designing spaces) will be relatively small.
I've already drawn out a small section, and have a general map planned of the entire setting--so things are already going much more smoothly than that last project. And I've begun writing it, too! But I haven't put the pieces together that I have so far, which is the toughest part.
I could go on and on about the process, but that would become boring. You might be familiar with the story at its base, though. Do you know "Hildebrandslied"?
[[I'm familiar with it.|Know hilde]]
[[No, what is it?|Dunno hilde]]
[[I don't really care.|Basic]]Yes and no. I do have another creative project I'm working on, but I figured I would "practice," so to speak, by trying to write a blog this way, too. This is a meandering, almost conversational way of writing something. Do you feel a little like you're interviewing me? Writing this out, I feel like I'm doing an AMA--although, of course, I'm controlling all the questions.
As things move further along, I'd like to experiment with different choices and things to make this presentation much more interesting. What if it actually was a text adventure--what if you walked into my virtual home, sat down with virtual me and carried on a conversation? But let's not get ahead of ourselves... we'll just stick to this more simple format for now.
[[Tell me more about the medium for this blog.|About the medium]]
[[What's the other project?|Instead hilde]]]
[[I want to talk about something else.|Basic]]I'll spare you the summary, then--not that it's long, anyway. I could just copy and paste the thing here. So what I want to do is create a setting that is the stage for the fight between Hildebrand and his son; the reader will begin at Hadubrand's home, then travel out of the village and into the surrounding wilderness to the battlefield.
The reader isn't inhabiting Hadubrand's body or "playing" the plot like a game; rather than act through the plot, meet characters, etc., I want the reader to instead make a sort of pilgrimage through the landscape that--through its structure, shapes, etc.--evokes the thoughts and feelings of the two characters. This is what makes it, in my mind, more of a poetry thing than a straihtforward narrative or "game," even if it's presented that kind of way.
I don't know how successful it will be as a reading experience... but why not try!
[[I want to talk about something else.|Basic]]"Hildebrandslied" is a very old Germanic poem. It tells the story of Hildebrand and his son Hadubrand, two warriors who now face one another in battle. Hildebrand recognizes his son and tries to reach out to him as such; Hadubrand believes his father is dead and that the enemy is trying to fool him into letting his guard down. The story ends as they clash--but the conclusion is unknown. Who killed whom?
You can read about it on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildebrandslied">Wikipedia</a>, or read its full text (it's very, very short) <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hildebrand.html">here</a>.
[[How will you adapt it?|Adapt]]
[[Let's discuss something else.|Basic]]Okay, now we have introductions out of the way... you have probably read about why I've made this page and why hypertext is an interest to me before reaching here, in which case I've already borrowed a lot of your time (in the future, when I'm less lazy, the text will be aware of some of the paths you take and act accordingly).
Once this blog is no longer new or novel, we won't have all those introductions to get through before reaching here, which is essentially the central "hub" of content.
Anyway....
Here is what's on my mind lately:
[[Feelind sad after a good time|Sad]]
[[Social media & the news|Social News]]Well, okay then. Come back if you feel like seeing what's up!What I want to do is create a setting that is the stage for the fight between Hildebrand and his son; the reader will begin at Hadubrand's home, then travel out of the village and into the surrounding wilderness to the battlefield.
The reader isn't inhabiting Hadubrand's body or "playing" the plot like a game; rather than act through the plot, meet characters, etc., I want the reader to instead make a sort of pilgrimage through the landscape that--through its structure, shapes, etc.--evokes the thoughts and feelings of the two characters. This is what makes it, in my mind, more of a poetry thing than a straihtforward narrative or "game," even if it's presented that kind of way.
I don't know how successful it will be as a reading experience... but why not try!
[[I want to talk about something else.|Basic]]This page was made using <a href="https://twinery.org/">Twine</a>. Twine is a tool used for easily designing hypertext stories; most Twine projects are game-like text advenures or choose-your-own-adventure stories, though you can use Twine to easily create any sort of hypertext experience. In this case, a blog-like experience.
As you've already experienced, readers can explore the content in a non-linear way. Rather than scroll through a temporal succession of archived blog posts, you can meander among a set of related topics and ideas. Unlike a blog or social media feed, nothing here is archived in perpetuity; information is kept here only for as long as it seems relevant to me. For example, this introductory text explaining the blog might last for some time, but once this page is no longer considered new or novel, it may be erased. Therefore, this page might be more akin to an ever-changing bulletin board. There might be days where not much is different; meanwhile, other days might have a radically different set of content.
At some point, as I become more accustomed to writing this, text might change based on the order you move from topic to topic, providing a more unique reading experience. I think that's the most interesting thing about this: having freedom to make creative and unexpected experiences.
It's possible that, because none of this will be archived (not here anyway--any third party can just periodically download the HTML file and save it), and because this exists outside of social media, that I'll mostly be screaming into a void here. But I'm looking at this as a writing exercise (both to experiment with Twine and to take time out of the day to reflect a little more formally on things), so I'll take the cliche artists' phrase that I'm "doing this for myself, not the audience."
Was there anything else you wanted to know?
[[Not really... let's talk about something else.|Basic]]There is a lot of really bad writing about people choosing to take a "digital detox" or leave social media, instead pursuing more "authentic" life experiences and "real" relationships, as if social media and technology is destorying human relationships. (Look up "the IRL fetish"). I definitely don't want to give off that impression, and I'm not actually leaving social media; I've just decided that I'm over the social media structure of broadcasting messages to a wide audience--messages that are then archived, indexed and searchable forever.
I've now spent over a decade on Twitter (I made my account midway through high school!) and have amassed over 19 thousand tweets. This makes me deeply uncomfortable; not because I really feel the need to "hide" anything I've tweeted, but I don't like a ghost of my past self existing forever. I feel the same about Facebook, where I also opened an account back in high school. I had to turn off that feature that shows you year-old (or longer posts) from the current date because I felt too uncomfortable seeing my cringey old self snarkily saying something to present-day me.
But in general, I tire of the Facebook newsfeed, like everyone else. Last year, I unfollowed every single person that I'm friends with on Facebook, opting to use the site solely for groups related to my interest and to use Messenger to chat with friends. I've since re-followed about a dozen people, but almost 600 of my friends are still banished. I've also seriously cut down the amount of people I follow on Twitter. I used to be very connected to posting to social media, but now I just don't care. Maybe this is partly to do with the constant barrage of covfefe tweets and meme-ified news where everyone is blasting the same rehearsed opinion. Or maybe it's just not the hot new thing anymore! I don't know!
One encouraging thing I've found is that I'm not alone--I think <a href="http://www.yahoo.com">Taylor Lorenz</a> is correct in her prediction that the majority of social media users will turn inward towards closed groups and communities rather than continue to post to public streams. I've spoken to a few people who share my sentiment that groups are really Facebook's only redeeming feature. The ironic thing is that groups aren't innovative: they're just fancy-looking web forums like we would use before social media was even a thing.
I'll still consume on Facebook that way, and I'll still read tweets from a smaller list of people whose opinions or goings-on I care more deeply about. But I think I'm "over" the newsfeed and handing over an indexible public biography to corporations for them to profit from, and would appreciate a more freeform and open place on the internet than rigid algorithmic feeds. Making this kind-of-but-not-really blog is my post-9/11-era version of a Geocities site or MySpace page.
[[Let's talk about something else|Basic]]Here is what's on my mind lately:
[[Feelind sad after a good time|Sad]]
[[Social media & the news|Social News]]
This is my new blog. It's not really like a blog in that there is no archive of a succession of posts; everything here is a single HTML file, though you can navigate to different "nodes" and places, like a text adventure game or a choose-your-own-adventure book.
You can try making a choice now if you want. I'm letting you decide, since that's the whole point of writing things in this medium:
[[Okay.|Agreeable]]
[[No.|Disagreeable]]I recently read a few pieces related to social media--particularly Facebook--and its role in shaping politics.
First, there is a <a href="http://reallifemag.com/breaking-news/">great piece</a> by Nathan Jurgenson on Real Life about the always-accelerating cycle of news online, with its causing of chaos, confusion and a relentless pursuit for dramatic spectacle and $$$. (This is one of three stories on the site this week related to news. I haven't read the others yet).
Next, we have a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-01-02/inside-the-eccentric-unstoppable-deal-making-of-masayoshi-son">Bloomberg piece</a> from last month on the extensive role Facebook employees have played in elections across the world.
That piece is made all the more interesting given <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-deleting-accounts-at-the-direction-of-the-u-s-and-israeli-governments/">The Intercept's story</a> from a few days ago about Facebook's capitulation to the U.S. and Israeli governments when asked to take down and delete individuals' profiles.
Anyway...
[[Let's talk about something else.|Basic2]]
Do you ever feel sad after you've experienced a good time?
[[No. What do you mean?]]
[[Yeah...]]This is something that follows after a particularly good group-social situation. So let's say you had a nice low-key hangout with friends--but then the night is done and it's time to go home! Everyone goes their separate ways, and while you had lots of fun, you end up feeling a little sad even though you know, like, you'll just see everyone again and it doesn't matter.
It probably has something to do with brain chemistry... like you were so happy that you exhausted all those chemicals.
Here is how I feel when leaving:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/14gKaUEB7OQ" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
And afterward, here is how I will feel going to bed after such a time:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/poXdXtYthRo" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
[[I know what you mean.|Acknowledge]]
[[Ok, Joe. Who hurt you?|Worried]]
It's a sad feeling, but it's nice in a way...
Here is how I feel when leaving one of those particularly uplifting moments:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/14gKaUEB7OQ" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
And afterward, here is how I will feel going to bed after such a time:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/poXdXtYthRo" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Anyway...
[[Let's talk about something else|Basic2]]It's a sad feeling, but it's nice in a way...
Anyway...
[[Let's talk about something else|Basic2]]Oh no, this isn't coming out of some kind of depression or something! I think it's actually a nice thing in a bittersweet way.
Anyway...
[[Let's talk about something else|Basic2]]