Bagsy
Introduction
In college I took photos for my university’s newspaper. In retrospect I did not fully appreciate how fascinating this was. After all, I was easily granted close-ups at talks I would otherwise have little to zero chance of attending. No, I was not able to photograph Barack Obama’s 2017 appearance at the Logan Center. Nevertheless, my list featured prominent figures: former CIA director John Brennan, the American String Quartet, Hiroshima bomb survivor Tekashi Teramoto, and even 2016 libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
Over the summer I listened to an autobiography authored by another individual whose “visit” I had the privilege of photographing in 2016. It should be mentioned I had no choice but to break the status quo of how I normally photographed invitees. At previous talks I waited for the audience to be seated, after which I snaked through to the front row to capture the speaker from optimal angles. This time was different not because the event was outdoors or that I forgot my camera but rather because the subject was on a screen. To my dismay, the “new normal” of replacing face-to-face interactions with Zoom video calls dilutes my intended dramatic effect here.
Fortunately, this does not diminish the significance of having witnessed a live interview with Edward Snowden before my eyes. You can watch a recording of the talk here.
At the time I was not well-versed in the whistleblower’s case. Sure, I was acquainted with digital privacy’s importance as well as the overused mantra, “if something is free, you are the product.” Like anyone else not living entirely under a rock, I knew Snowden earned both praise and admonishment across the globe. Why did it take me so long to care?
About a year ago, largely inspired by a thirty-day digital declutter outlined in Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, I reflected on the amount of time I was spending on social media. Though I do not feel I was a social media addict, I wondered how my future self would feel about surrendering my information to data-driven platforms every day. Thankfully, it did not take long for me to replace seemingly innocent, quick scrolls – which easily turned into thirty minutes wasted – through Twitter and Instagram with higher quality leisure activities I previously deemed incompatible with my schedule. As a result, I am finally reading books again for pleasure and immersing myself in foreign languages with greater fervor. I guess I can now add writing to the list.
I was initially motivated to revitalize meaningful hobbies and to increase my attention span in work and everyday life. Little did I know that the coronavirus pandemic would accelerate my interest in digital autonomy and compel me to read Permanent Record.
Recent events for better or worse (hey, maybe ignorance is bliss) have revealed that concentrating power in the hands of few is devastating, stretches beyond the digital domain, and ultimately can no longer be ignored. We mourn perished local businesses in our communities, whereas Jeff Bezos profits. A centralized food system controlled by ten companies threatens the supply chain around the globe. The events which unfolded on January 6th, 2021 seem like a fictional story pulled from The Social Dilemma.
Like the author of “Tending the Digital Commons,” I took great pride in procuring aesthetically pleasing themes and content for my Tumblr blog. This platform also fostered some of my closest friendships by helping me connect with other music fans. If someone told my fifteen year-old self that Tumblr, like any other social website, could be shut down, I am not sure I would have “bought in” to the platform as much as I did. While Facebook and Twitter are more likely to stay alive perpetuating the echo chamber than they are to disappear, I think this (slim) possibility is something we take for granted. How many people do you know who do not blink an eye storing their life’s most precious content on a Cloud service yet do not own an external hard drive?
There is something empowering about building something of your own online, like a craft. When I was in elementary school, I tinkered with HTML. I was by no means a master. My layouts were clunky and amateur at best. But this taught me a crucial lesson: “the online world does not merely exist, but is built.” Although trapped within the confines of Neopets, knowing I had this control was more empowering than the actual designing of pages for my user profile or guild.
I want to design and own my content. Sadly, realizing and exercising such control is not so trivial today. The online world is now almost entirely built for tech giants to promote a “global community” where all our personal data is up for grabs with every click. Imagining a future world that allows algorithms to make political decisions is no longer far-fetched. We must be reminded that people can and, dare I say, should feel in control on the Internet – even in the current unprecedented (cringing as I use this word) era.
To counteract the digital headmasters, Jacobs implores young people not to code but rather to establish “a domain of one’s own.”
So, here I am doing that.
I want to make clear that today’s web is not black-and-white. It is easy to fall prey to fear-mongering. It is easy to blame everything on Facebook and Google. Like most things in life, the Internet is much more nuanced. Even though social media offers more cons than pros, they are not the only potentially harmful places out there. Small forums and mobile communications like WhatsApp can also spread false information and brew extremism. On the bright side, social platforms are also not the only places to connect with like-minded individuals in a positive way, contrary to popular belief.
I am not here to propose solutions. I feel that promoting a decentralized web and acknowledging that the best way to effect change. Moreover, maintaining a blog would prove challenging if I only cared about establishing my own place online outside of social media. In that case, all I would have to do is buy a domain, set up my site, and call it a day. Or a year.
Forging digital independence is the focus of this post, but the act of writing itself is a greater motivator for me. I want to blog because I haven’t seriously written anything unrelated to science since college. That’s a first for me, and I can’t say I’m proud of it. While I cannot promise that my musings will be devoid of STEM topics, this blog will project a more comprehensive version of myself. I want to write about books, music, philosophy, photography, and more. Multilingual content is also not out of the question if I can get that set up.
If you have made it this far, welcome!