What the hell is community? From my own experiences and studying from those of the (sometimes radical) left and from the Yesterweb, community is definitely complicated. But for me, it's being able to have a network of people who share the things that they like, together in a supportive environment pushing for progressive change.
One thing that is definitely an important part of community is conflict. I (personally) believe that there's such thing as good and bad conflict. Good conflict for me, looks like simply discussing how a weapon should be balanced, there might be yelling, there might be a (few) bouts of namecalling, but at the end of the day, everyone just wants to see a game improve and keep in mind another person's feelings, and they'll likely play together after. However, what I see as bad conflict is whenever you take anything in the discussion personally, even when it shouldn't particularly mean anything to you. As well as pearl clutching, and treating any sort of discussion as some sort of "debate". Honestly, fuck debates, they don't solve anything, they don't help anything, and it's just a game of who's morally superior than the other, which means utterly fucking nothing when everyone is so contradictory, INCLUDING ME!
Again, it is definitely possible to engage in meaningful and positive conflict, as long as everyone in that party cares about the other's feelings about things, and genuinely want to see change. People are complicated and contradictory and strange and weird but we all can connect. Nothing good can ever come from a conflict that breeds toxicity, tribalism, and bigotry. And we shouldn't be trying to maintain the systems that oppress us in real life, as well as online.
How do I feel is a way that people can move towards the indie web? Because having an already small minority leave to neocities, bluesky and the likes is not going to change anything about Twitter or Facebook or Reddit or Tumblr. We have to be the change that we want to see, and that means that we have to rethink how we approach the internet, and how we can be safe about that!
So here's my current (and bound to change) method for how I approach the internet:
pI watched a video on someone's experience with life and CS (critical strike), as well as its community. It struck me in a way that I haven't observed in a while. I talked about my feelings with the video, and the creator of the video responded. We had a short conversation which was pleasant to the both of us. I'll just show the whole thing because I can't really summarize it in a way that gives it justice.
"I think you and I are of a similar fiber, except with different hobbies. You're kind of on the other end of that honest self-discovery, while many hurting people haven't overcome that hurdle. If you can express that part of you, there are people in the world who need to hear it. In CS specifically, queer strikers are obviously a minority, but they tend to stay quiet due to the phobia spread around the community. When it comes to giving these suppressed voices a chance to feel heard, it's up to people with our experiences who have something they want to share. I'm not saying make a video NOW, but just, keep it in mind with your natural self-expression. Even with all our similarities, our lives still took very different shapes. Your voice is needed."
This pretty much sums up all my thoughts towards sharing your experiences with people, especially those who may be like you, but might not have that voice. And things like this wouldn't happen if I had stumbled across the video, watched it, and then never thought much about it again. It's important to write about how you feel about things, about certain media, about experiences with the things that you like. People like Patricia Taxxon inspire me because of how deeply they engage with the media that they enjoy, and that is what pushes me towards looking deeply at more than just TC2, but me and my relationship with life itself. And she (like me) is fucking weird! And that's okay! In fact, that's good for everyone, because that gives us an experience to resonate with, a chance to look back at ourselves, and wonder what the hell we're doing. There's no point in mindlessly consuming content, when it's far more rewarding to meaningfully interact with something and its creator.
I'd also implore you to interact with smaller creators, because those are the people that actually turn out to have more interesting ideas and thoughts. They may post irregularly, they may be imperfect, and their work may even be awkward to interact with, but when did we develop the idea that everyone needs to be perfect? Something I realized about my generation and the future generations to come is that we're pressured not to fail. When in all reality, failure is simply a constant in life, and there's nothing truly wrong with failure. Because part of being human is being imperfect, and being able to be at peace with that imperfection is what personally frees me from the need to perform both socially and creatively. So please. Interact with that small creator that may get little to no interaction with their posts, because if you do, that may have made their day, or maybe it didn't. At least you tried.
I, as a queer person, have personal responsibility to help other queer people in need. And i've always had this tendency to help apparent outsiders of any community, because I believe in helping everyone that's affected by the system in a negative way. But earlier on, I was definitely more juvenile in my intentions. It was moreso of a need to help outsiders because I wanted to feel better about myself, which I do regret thinking that way before. But now, it's a need to provide hospitality and support to those who desperately need it, while of course maintaining my own boundaries as to what I can personally deal with.
Fight back against bigotry, it serves fucking nobody, and only perpetuates the same cycle of hatred and misconceptions about people like me who are on many levels of intersectionality who haven't had a chance to share their experiences.
I've also observed this pattern of individualism, that mostly came from American socialization and capitalism, urging you to profit off of EVERYTHING that you love doing, and that has an extremely detrimental effect on communities. It makes people not consider other people, their feelings, and their livelihoods. I've seen power struggles and enforcements of social hierarchies that serve virtually no one. Community is not a means for you to advertise your own business. Community again, is a network of people who want to share what they love with others. If you want change towards a more wholesome utopia of community, then we have to move past the idea of individualism, hegemony, and homogeneity. And instead move towards heterogeneity, community support, egalitarianism, and democratic community feedback.
But I don't mean this in a capitalistic sense. Because most of what i've seen about moving towards creation rather than consumption, has themes of gaining capital and trying to win this stupid ass game. I'm aware of the fact that by the end of this manifesto, I'll still have to engage with the system in some way, but I'd suggest that you try not to turn any of the things that you enjoy doing into any sort of job. Because that's what's pushed towards young people nowadays, especially those in "STEAM", or whatever acronym the industries try to use to appeal to the masses. Instead of having a student enjoy the arts, a teacher has to tell them that "Hey! Maybe you can instead do web development, there's art in web development! Please just don't waste the rest of your life drawing shitty things that nobody will ever remember and that you will never be remembered for!" (That may have been a bit exaggerated but you get what I mean).
The Arts have value, and that value is in the enrichment of culture and personal fulfillment. So please, leave whatever hobby or skill you have as just a skill. You don't need to profit from everything that you do. Creating things is supposed to fun. Art is supposed to be fun. Drawing is supposed to be fun, but I forgot that for a long time. But now, I've started to rekindle my love for drawing, and you should rekindle your love for whatever art you make as well!
If you find that you may not enjoy this part of your art, there's nothing wrong with switching to a different medium or way, I used to do music for a short while because I was burnt out on art a long time ago, and I might do the same again! Life is more than just doing the same thing every single day, be okay with switching things up whenever u want to!
This has a fair bit of overlap with the first heading, but make anything about the things that you like. That is what enriches you, and that is important for you. Make your own ideas come to fruition in any sort of capacity, no matter the quality of it. Art is valuable to the individual, it doesn't need to serve some sort of capitalistic function. It can just be for you, and that's perfectly valid.
One thing I realized when I dabbled into the radical left was the intense rejection of ideas that slightly differed from their own. Even with people who have good intentions, that can be lost when you find differing viewpoints from your own as personal attacks. Remember that you are not fighting the individual, you are trying to fight the system. But the way we fight that system is not by pushing away those who may think differently of your ideals, but bringing them in as well. As long as it is in an environment that benefits everyone involved, we should not be fighting each other over slight caveats and disagreements. At the end of the day, we are all human with our own contradictions and hypocrisy, and that is okay. Treat that cognitive dissonance with understanding of the other's worldviews, and think about them. Even if you don't want to. Trying to create this mentality of "Us vs Them", is what causes problems for communities of many kinds, especially those that are religious.
Trying to push people away who may genuinely need your support will only serve to hurt everyone in the long run, but keep in mind that boundaries are necessary. You do not have to associate with someone who may not respect you or others like you. But make sure to clear up any bouts of ignorance with compassion and understanding for the other individual.
Recently, I realized the very real importance of knowing things in our current society, especially with the rise of anti-intellectualism nowadays. It feels like people nowadays look down on you for knowing things more than they do, and thats bad! People nowadays double down on their ignorance (which is exactly what makes someone stupid), and I feel we have to tolerate those who may seem "pretentious" in what they know, because they probably do know more than you!
Learning is as much as a skill as anything else, and your brain is as much as a muscle as any other part of your body. That means you need to treat your brain with care, drink some water, go on walks, do some intellectually stimulating activities like puzzle games, playing an instrument, etc. Besides, before you can practice learning, you have to make sure your brain is ready to do that kind of work.
Learning doesn't have to be done in one way, either. You have many tools at your disposal, with readings, videos, podcasts, and much more to help you gather information from many sources. Keep in mind that there is a difference between learning and consuming. Consuming is when u take in content without analyzing or thinking about it (for example, doomscrolling on ANY social media). Learning (in my opinion) is to take information, analyze how you can apply this information, and then applying it. As I mentioned before, there are many different ways you can learn information, but the means is only one part of the picture. The rest comes down to analysis and application. You can watch a several hour tutorial on a programming language, but if you don't use any of that information after, then you might as well had watched a webseries, because at least then you would've enjoyed what you were engaging with, rather than appearing as smart to yourself or other people.
As a programmer, it is especially important to figure out what to do with the information that you know, or take only what you need to know to carry out a certain task. You may have to reread documents, move on with a text despite not knowing certain concepts, or parse for specific information related to what you're doing. Don't read things like language references like a novel, the author(s) designed it in a way so that you have to be the one to figure out the best way to utilize it.
This was the video I based this heading from, please watch it!Of course, we are past the age of "everyone you meet online is 40 years old and wants to kidnap you", but there is still a danger present that is on the internet, albeit more in the shadows. It's generally best to be cautious on the internet because you genuinely do not know the person who you are talking to online. You don't know what their life is like outside the internet, or who they are (unless they're vulnerable enough with you to share that kind of information), and it is possible for anyone to deceive you on who they are for malicious reasons.
From my experience on the web, depending on where you are, you will generally find people who are quite honest about themselves. And depending on your boundaries, it is perfectly fine to have friendships and even relationships online. But a lot of that depends on you, the person reading this, to figure out where your boundaries are, and how you enforce them. Don't be like me (who struggled with people-pleasing and self-shame) and bend over backwards for anyone that you meet online, because most of the time, it will be more harmful towards you, and the person involved may actually take advantage of you.
Here's some basic principles I use whenever I'm interacting with anyone online: