Other media is good for nostalgia. Books, TV shows, movies, music, video games, they never change. They’re always exactly the same when you visit them again as they were when you last left.

But the internet is not. It’s fleeting: Things move, things change, things are destroyed and lost forever into the ether. You can never go back and play that online game you loved like you used to, because they’ve updated it to the point where it’s nearly unrecognizable. Sites you used to visit are gone, their hosting services bought out and discontinued and destroyed. Sometimes you find a place that’s still standing, but it’s long abandoned.

I’m here because I miss the old internet.

I miss things like Diaryland and LiveJournal, where people were writing about their lives without a thousand pictures and promotional giveways and trying to market themselves like a product. I miss art getting passed around without everyone throwing a tantrum about getting credit. I miss gifs being small pixel animations rather than short clips of popular movies and TV shows. I miss guestbooks and webrings.

I’m tired of social media. I’m tired of all the content coming in a big stream of endless updates, and then ending up mashed into a huge disorganized pile. I’m tired of a comments section being attached to everything. I’m tired of games constantly pestering me to buy their virtual cash instead of forcing everyone to earn it by actually playing the game. I’m tired of everyone wanting me to watch videos on YouTube.

But most of all, I miss the effort that people used to put into things, making their own sites instead of just accumulating accounts on others, having to learn some HTML in order to produce content, and taking the time to write out one big daily entry instead of tiny hourly updates. It’s too fast, too cluttered, too pointless.

Or maybe I’m just a cranky old lady.

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