Testing, testing

I really. Really really. Cannot stand social media anymore. It used to be a fun way to connect with people you knew in real life—or not. People you found bonding over some shared interest. Yes, I had my fangirling days. No, we don’t need to talk about it right now.

And then, the algorithm entered the chat. Well, let’s be honest here, money entered the chat. And it’s sucked the life out of it for me. Posting used to feel like a shout into the void, and someone who liked it would somehow find it. Now, anyone can. And I’ll be damned if there aren’t stupid inflammatory responses in nearly every comment section these days. God forbid something goes viral—the trolls come out in droves.

I just don’t get the appeal. There are plenty of other hobbies that would be enjoyable for everyone involved. Or like, just scroll on. But apparently that’s too hard.

Not that I think I’ll go viral and attract all kinds of attention with my ~incredible musings, I just don’t want to feed the beast. I want to opt out, stick my head in the sand—whatever you want to call it. Go off the fucking grid.

So I want to post here. I don’t want to cause anyone more notifications. Part of me considered an email list—Substack is pretty popular lately. But personally, I get sick of email lists after a while, even if I really like the person and their “content”.

I’m going for more of a local shop vibe. We’re open 24 hours, stay as long as you want. You know where to find us whenever you feel like stopping in.

As cool as it would be to generate any kind of income from what I create/post online, I’m not really interested in pay walls, ads, or sponsorships, and I really don’t know what I want to sell that I wouldn’t mind just posting for free. I think I will add some kind of proverbial tip jar (I generally won’t say no if someone wants to share their wealth), but that’s all that’s in mind for now.

I’m also sick of scrolling on my phone—feeling addicted, really. And being inundated with ads for things to buy. Having less incentive to check the apps is a good thing for me right now.

I do like the idea of fostering some kind of community, which maybe implies some kind of privacy/pay wall or more accessibility, but we’re far from that step.

As I do, when I thought of trying to create a “container” (as the great Cody says) for my content besides social media, I decided my website would be obvious, and it should probably just take the form of a blog. If I were in my domain-name buying days, however, I would have tried for antiviral.com. Or like, antiviral.blog.

But, friends, I don’t do that anymore, and I am also pretty fucking unemployed.

By choice. We can talk about that later, too.

Maybe it should be all caps. ANTIVIRAL. I don’t know. We’ll play with it.

Fun (?) fact, after I thought of ANTIVIRAL, I stumbled across the Off the Grid podcast and thought, holy shit, that would have been such a good name.

But I’m also into the traditional sense of being off the grid, so I guess the original name can still stand.

As much as I do enjoy blogging in the original writing/photos format of my youth, I also really enjoy video. This love once became a career that I crashed and burned out with, but I’d like to revisit the medium more in a ~personal creative way. It might be silly, it might be serious, it might be both.

I’ll host everything on youtube for simplicity’s sake, but all the content will be “unlisted” over there so that the algorithm/trolls can’t just stumble upon it. I haven’t figured out a clean way to embed Shorts here, which is annoying, but I guess that’s something we’ll also have to figure out as we go.

Am I using too many commas? It’s been so long since I’ve written more than an instagram caption publicly. A journal doesn’t care about that kind of shit.

This probably won’t surprise you, but this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to revive a blog in this container. I published a few posts, then at one point unpublished them, and have a handful of drafts that I never fleshed out. Looking through them today, I decided to re-publish my finished posts. I still like them. They still feel like me. I think I’ve settled on fleshing out those old drafts, too. I’m picturing showing you the original bullet-point-esque notes I jotted down, then my years-later additions.

Turns out, a lot of my thoughts have been just knocking around up here waiting to get out for a while. Teased multiple times with “I feel ready to share” moments over the years.

At the ripening (gross) age of 32, I’ve learned to trust the universe’s timing on things. It’s certainly worked out for me so far.

Anyway.

This isn’t what I intended on doing when I set up my laptop out the back of my 4Runner at my first dispersed camp spot on my third cross-country trip. I guess the rolling hills are inspiring in more ways than one.

But like, I also found a tick at the very top of my asscrack as I lay in bed last night. In case you were somehow under any impression that things were way too idyllic over here.

I don’t know. I just really felt like I needed to tell someone that.

I’m realizing as this post is coming to a close, the trolls could probably find me here, too. But I don’t think that’s something I can focus on just yet.

Can’t let the bastards get me down everywhere, I guess.

‘Til next time.