celestinetan

In the early 2000s the Internet used to be a hub of creative discovery. For us Millennials, “surfing the web” meant countless hours spent sifting through homepages via hyperlinks. Every website was different, most were colorful. Almost everyone I knew was into blogging. Most of which was mundane stuff: a day in our lives, our recent travels, or perhaps sharing our favorite recipes. We decorated our blogs with custom themes and tinkered with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I had several blogs in my lifetime.

In the early days I had one which was designed to look like a Yahoo! search engine (except instead of “Yahoo!”, the headline says “Jesus!”). When Christmas came I would search for a javascript code that I could embed in my blog so that there would be little snowflakes floating down the screen. But more importantly I was writing in long form, reflecting and journaling my human experience.

I was an early adopter of Instagram, back when the logo still looked like a Polaroid camera, and filters were en vogue. I used it as a personal photo album to visually document my life. Facebook was a platform for me to keep in touch with my friends; I would ‘write on their wall’ to wish them a happy birthday. It was a daily ritual to log on to Facebook first thing in the morning after getting into the office to catch up on the latest – chronologically.

It was a time where no algorithms decided what we should or should not see; and the user experience had not yet been optimized for maximum screen addiction and hours and hours of doom scrolling. It was also a time where people jotted their thoughts down: reflective, considered, and human.

This is why I have re-started blogging, to reclaim my attention and to put my “self” out there. I had realised that my “self” is more than just my pictures, they are also my thoughts: like the ancient Egyptians I want to carve my thoughts into these digital walls as a testimony of my existence.

As I begin the monumental task of transitioning out of social media, I will be building my own RSS feed as a way to keep track of things that matter such as news and updates from my social circles – without the need for Big Tech or algorithms. And yes I do realise that I am still a voice in the wilderness and that most of my friends are still on Instagram.

But hey, be the change you want to see in this world. x