Ya better get ready cuz ch-ch-changes are coming

Internet, we need to have a talk.

WWW: Okay, wazzup?

You have to stop all the changes. It’s just too much.

WWW: what change? Can you be specific?

ALL OF THEM! It’s just too much.

WWW: Oh waaahhhhh. Sheesh, change is normal. In everything.

I KNOW THAT. But you’re just pushing it. Sometimes I just feel like I should cancel my cable and take a sledgehammer to the computers, the cell phones, all of it. All of you.

WWW: Maybe you should. I can be … quite addictive.

Knock it off with that sultry voice shit. I’m serious. Just listen! I started learning computer stuff because it seemed I’d need it to stay employed. Initially, you were fun. Almost immediately, I started learning HTML and coded web pages. Within 6 months, several online friends and I were publishing an Ezine.

WWW: And?

First it was the coding. HTML became DHTML, XHTML, CSS and on and on. It seemed like every couple of months, there was a new language to learn. I finally realized I HATED coding. I just wanted to read and write. But even that was too much to ask.

I mean, I signed up for Pandora. Then came YouTube, Then other ways to stream music. There were a dozen or so search engines to look for things, though eventually, Google emerged as king. A very nosy king.

Same with social media, as you took us through MySpace, FaceBook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram, Reddit, etc, etc. It’s just TOO MUCH! I don’t know why anyone needs all that stuff. And just when I feel like I’ve gained some mastery over something, BAM, it’s obsolete.

Everything I do online and off takes an app. I don’t need all these apps on my phone! I don’t need cookies tracking everything I do or buy. Most aren’t helpful to me. They’re helpful to companies selling shit. And I gotta lay out hundreds of dollars every year to assist them trying to sell me shit. I don’t need more shit!

WWW: Can you get to the point? I’m not gonna change all the things at once. So what set you off? Are there some specific things I can try to address?

Well, I like to keep track of what’s going on with friends and relatives. That’s why I do Facebook. But more and more, the younger people aren’t using it much anymore. I never hear about the grandkids now and even my 30-something kids are scarce.

WWW: You can’t put that on me.

Yeah? Well, then there’s a number of friends ailing. Some are hurting, some grieving the loss of someone close, some are in treatment, some are in physical rehab. And some have died! Good people.

WWW: What, I look like a deity? I can’t rewrite the life passages of reality.

I dunno, your virtual reality stuff sure seems to impact our reality more and more. Like everyone pays their bills online and shops at Amazon, right? Our politics is all mostly online, much of our entertainment is. And this pandemic meant we all had to isolate more so you became our principal conduit to everything. Buying, selling, working from home, zooming and everyone with a cellphone videoing news events. Even when I see a doctor, there’s some goddamn portal I need to use because nobody wants to take the time to talk to me. Is it my breath?

Talking on a phone is so easy! And I don’t have to remember which of my 500 passwords I need to use. You’re making it all too complicated! I mean, I learned to drive a car 50 years ago and I haven’t had to change much at all to drive a car now.

Plus, on my desktop, my email, my cell phone, there’s thousands of things I need to delete. Adding something takes one click. Each deletion takes 3 or 4 steps. Why? Why when I click ‘delete’ does it ask me if I’m SURE I want to delete? When I kick the bucket, I’ll still have thousands of things left undeleted. In my will I’m clear: take everything with a plug or cord or wifi, toss it on my stiff bod and burn it.

And I have no idea what’s floating around on clouds. Who holds the copyright to mythical vapor?

WWW: okay, are you done venting now?

HELL NO! There’s this fucking Twitter thing. When it first came out it seemed kind of silly. 120 characters could be tweeted. Only comedians with snappy one-liners could do okay with that. Then it got doubled, which made it more functional. Then that strange MeMeMeMeMe bully started using it like it was his own broadcast studio and press conference and batphone. It got harder and harder to do anything fun with it anymore.

It felt like a bridge with no guardrails where you came to watch the car crashes.

It got so bad that a couple of years ago, lots of us were looking for alternatives. Except every short-message platform was more clunky and badly designed. So everyone came back. And when that bully finally got kicked off, everything got much calmer.

WWW: Oh yeah, I totally saw that. I think it’s kinda funny that the bully and his fans keep trying to develop alternative sites but none come closer to Twitter.

Then you must know what else is going on there now. That Musk guy bought it and proclaimed himself as a free speech champion. He attacked the hospitalized Paul Pelosi, fired half the staff, is making the remaining staff work double time, tried to reinstate the bully, reinstated a lot of haters and violent guys, and now he’s attacking Dr. Fauci. It’s no wonder advertisers are shunning the site now. But I know how this works. If he can rebuild the traffic, they’ll all come back. Profit is the fentanyl of corporate sales.

And now I hear Muskox wants to boost the character limit from 260 to 4000! It sounds like he’s turning it into Facebook but with almost no moderation. Facetime with Fuehrer; who needs that?

And people are leaving in droves. Some are signing on to multiple Twitterlike platforms. I’ve checked out some. They seem pretty clunky too. I want to get the hell off Twitter but I don’t have time to manage multiple learning curves. I don’t want more passwords, more sites to divert my attention to, more sites with assholes whose only pleasure in life is to stereotype who I am and try to trigger me.

Sometimes I wonder if 95% of the names on Twitter are real people or just Arti-IntelliBots harvesting my likes, dislikes, purchases and my willingness to retweet stuff endlessly as if I’m the bot. It was middle school enough before Q-Elon started swigging Sneaky Pete and Boone’s Farm laced with the used paraffin he coats his body with, then sounding off.

The freaking Republicans keep trying to get us to look at Hunter Biden’s dick pics and now Q-Elon is posting his own tiddy pics. WHY AM I PAYING A CABLE BILL FOR ALL THIS???!!?

Can’t you just create a place with nice people like Facebook has? Sure, I can block people on Twitter but since he bought the place, 40% of my twitter feed is filled with foreign language speakers and ads featuring women from Asia wiggling their hips. I spend more time blocking there than reading or tweeting. It’s fucked! And I see no way this apartheid boosted baby is gonna ever make it interesting again.

Which of the alt-twitty sites is gonna be the next big thing? Or will we be navigating by nose through the smellosphere next?

WWW: so that’s it? You just want to switch from Twitter to a site you like more?

Mostly. Though I really do get the occasional urge to kick Sir Tim Berners-Lee in his spanxdangle. And spammers. And the people who hijack websites and extort ransom if someone clicks on the wrong thing. And crypto-pushers. And who the fuck thought touchpads were a good idea? And acronyms. And those little spinny things when sites won’t kick in. And…

WWW: Dude, it sounds like the real problem is you’re just old.

Internet, if I ever find your manbits….

WWW: You’ll what? You know I’m not some biological entity. I’m a collective of electricity and algorithms and bots.

You too, eh?

WWW: Wait, wut?

Yeah, the doors of perception, remember? We all exist based on nerve receptors. Stick THAT in your USB port and smoke it.

WWW: Hmmmmm…. okay, so if you want to know the best landing spot in your flight from Twitter, how’s this: ask your readers.

But what if my readers don’t exist except in a cloud?

WWW: I see your quandary there.

That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?

WWW: Your parking meter just expired. For more time, insert some quarters. Oh lookee, there’s a meter maid!

Grrrr… #*&!@*%#!

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You’ll see a variety of changes in this newsletter in coming days. A bunch of trial and error stuff. Part of it’s prepping for the New Year as I try to hone in more on my topic matter, wrestling with the ‘niche’ that my writing needs to occupy to hit its sweetest spot.

To achieve that, though, first of all, I’m gonna push for more interactivity. I’ll be asking a number of questions in December. Please answer them. Use the comment button more. Your feedback is essential to my transitioning newsletter.

All of you. George McFly: “You are my density”

Don’t be a Biff, mmmkay?

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And a bit of something from a friend… but think of it as a goodbye to 2022.