Facing America Online

Facebook reminds me of why AOL (America OnLine) was so popular. It was easy. You see you were on the internet when you logged into AOL, but that wasn’t the point, the point was to BE on AOL. The chat rooms, the small groups, hell they served news and games as well. AOL grew so large it bought Time-Warner. It was “AOL Time Warner” for most of the 90’s.

And we, nerds that is, spent time trying to convince people that this World Wide Web was a thing that they should go to, go out, find stuff, leave the walls of AOL.

But it would take years, it would take cable internet and broadband before AOL’s rule collapsed.

And yet when it did communities were lost, friends separated.

Facebook is similar, in the sense that it too wants to be everything. It wants you to go to Facebook and never leave. Chat, make a group, read the news, hell watch videos and play games. All here.

And so yet again we, not quite nerds this time, maybe old nerds? Cynical people?, we never the less, are again trying to convince people (myself included) that there is a world outside of Facebook and we need to abandon this place.

We need to abandon this place.

Nothing, and I mean nothing that Facebook contributes to our lives is worth what it takes from us, what the company does to hurt us, as a people, what the algorithms force in front of us to instill anger, separation and discontent, because those things drive clicks.

And yet we are all still here. Because it feels inevitable, I assume, because it feels like “where else would we go?”

And unlike the MySpace exodus, or even the Digg one, I think the answer is actually the AOL one.

You see, we didn’t run to another AOL. We didn’t just meet up somewhere else and do the same thing with another company. We scattered, like stars, all over.

We made forums and blogs, we made web-rings, we made webpages that only existed because we really liked something and wanted to make a little space that showed it off.

The web was ours. Ours. Not facebook’s. Not Twitter’s. Not google’s.

This post won’t get you to leave Facebook. If you have read this far you’ve already thought of at least three reasons why this is non-sense and you’re going to stay there anyways.

But that’s not quite what I want to convince you.

Just like AOL, the rest of the WWW is still there, so sure, log in, check up on things, but instead of hitting refresh for that third time? Instead of just staying in Facebook? Go out there and find something else.

Join a forum of gardeners. Find a blog about the train sets you like. Look for someone who writes about your local politics on their blog.

Find something that doesn’t have an app.

One Final Show Before the Infinite

I am listening to the final hours of a radio station, and I am thinking about death.

About death, about ends, about how things that unite us, define us, still pass.

100.7 The Bay has been on the air for decades. I used to listen to this station when I was young (and still inside the broadcast range), and while it was never my top choice, it held one of the sacred six presets in my car, a regular in my radio rotation.

And tonight (12 August 2026) at midnight, it will go off the air. The DJs are saying goodbye, playing final songs, telling memories. The listeners are saying goodbye, calling, messaging, saying thank you, making final requests, saying how much the station will be missed.

When things die, they leave a different mark on us. They take with them the connection, the emotions, the routines, the comfort of knowing where on the dial to go to be greeted by a voice we recognize, and music we love.

It isn’t just 100.7, radio is dying, more and more stations are being pulled down, replaced with mindless algorithms, safe and uncontroversial playlists that repeat on a just long enough rhythm you mostly don’t notice.

Let us all have a moment and remember when radio was something important, not just as a technology, not as an industry, but to us, the people, how we found music, how we found news and connections, how we knew when a band was in town.

The morning DJs signed off with “Fearless” by Pink Floyd.

100.7 is dying today, and I am thinking about what it what it will take with it. We would use stations as a way to identify our musical tastes, I listen to WHFS, I listen to i100, I like KROQ, I like WKRP. And it connected us to others who shared those presets on our car radios when we showed up, windows down at a red light, to find the person next to us jamming to the same tune. Listening to the radio wasn’t just something we did. It was something we did together.

We are lucky, 93.5 WRNR Annapolis has come back (with streaming for those, like myself, have long since moved out of range). It is truly a different and wonderful experience to listen to music played by a real DJ, to experience art curated by someone who loves the art and wants to share it. It is something Spotify, Pandora, and others have taken from us.

In the way you want a meal cooked by someone skilled, in the way you want your wedding photos taken by someone with experience, in the way sometimes you just need someone to drive you home.

I’m sure there are other independent stations pushing through the noise to return as well, let’s try and find them.

The midday DJ signed off with “Free Falling” by Tom Petty.

I continue my all day listening, because this isn’t just about a radio station that has been on since I was a kid, it isn’t about music, and how we have changed its importance in our lives, and not even about how radio was also a community.

It is, as too many things lately, really about death, endings, and how nothing, not just people, but even ethereal things, like radio, like community, escapes it. When the thread is cut, the thread is cut.

And more so, it is about the now, the present. We have to listen to the music while it is here, sing along, sing for ourselves, for anyone close by, make music, share with our friends, with those strangers at red lights, so when the lights go out, and they turn off our frequency, it will have been worth it.

The afternoon DJ signed off with “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam.

As I keep my vigil on this station, knowing each song, each call out and DJ aside, each advertisement, each station identification is pushing us close to the inevitable stroke of midnight, I am grateful for the chance to say goodbye to an old friend, unlike WHFS, i100—my friends, Nikki, Mouse, Tim, Margie—even if this goodbye had to start with ‘I’m sorry it has been so long…’

And what a goodbye it has been, from the DJs, from the listeners and advertisers, memories and messages filled with love, joy and music.

May we all have the chance for such a send off.

(the radio signed off with “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin)

A Winter Evening Reflection

It is evening and I am thinking about moving my Fediverse server for posts/microblogs/thingys. It is late in the year and I am thinking about all sorts of server things, from updates, to shut downs to moving away from WordPress, to staying with WordPress.

It is late in the year and I am thinking. Thinking. December is somehow a good time for thinking, planning, wondering if the next few months should be different, wondering if in the next few months I should be different.

Always words like “should” creep into these thoughts, teetering on the edge of regret as the years, and December thoughts, accumulate.

But what is a “should” but a “could” that choose otherwise?

In these December thoughts, when I worry about what new URL to call my Sharkkey instance, whether I still need all the URLs I own, and if I should finally give Ghost an honest go, there is something else there, a desire to change, not because who I am, but because of who I sometimes wish I was.

Could be. Not Should be.

I should be in bed. And I will be soon. The sun sleeps so much these days, it is easy to join it, to linger in the morning under covers and fall under them in the evening as light fades out for the day.

With that light, let the “should”s fade as well. It is, most of all, a time for kindness to the one person who needs it. Yourself.