Actually Never

There’s a new Homestar Runner cartoon to celebrate their 25th anniversary. 25 years of Homestar seems impossible but the math checks out and also makes me feel close to death – even more so than normal.*

It was bad enough when I went to the one work function we had during covid lockdown times – outdoor drinks in a manager’s backyard – and I met her dog named Trogdor and I was the only one who understood what his name meant. He had a beefy arm growing out of the back of his neck and everything. Majesty. Consummate Vs.

…I think she got tired of me making references pretty quickly.

Anyway, the new cartoon is about going back to websites, which is an idea I support and think we should do more of. That’s partly why I made Actually Never™ its** own blog, instead of a Substack or Facebook posts or whatever. Among other problems, often Nazi-related, both those sites have.

Of course, making this a standalone blog with no social media presence is also why I only have 3 readers. Two of whom still use RSS and don’t actually visit this site, and the third only comes here when I remind him it exists, which I mostly can’t be bothered to do.

Also it would probably be more convenient for all concerned if I just embedded the YouTube version of that video here instead of linking to the actual Homestar Runner site. (It was certainly more convenient for grabbing a screenshot for the featured image.) But the whole point is to not direct all traffic to the same 10 sites/apps.

I dunno. Ryan North once said that any site too large to be properly moderated shouldn’t be allowed to exist.*** It’s hard to disagree with that. I think social media has done more harm than good for the world, even if it is convenient for keeping up with your pals. Or at least each site starts off that way before it gets enshittified with ads and algorithms and the aforementioned Nazis.

*I say things like this a lot and I want to assure you that whenever I’m done here, you should feel free – even encouraged – to make all the jokes you want about this or any other aspect of my life and/or death. I’ll even leave my browser history intact for you. Hell, if I wind up getting one of those deaths that give you a heads up, I’ll make sure to make my searches extra juicy. You know, instead of spending those precious last days with my loved ones or whatever.

**My phone tried autocorrecting “its” to “it’s” and have I got a Strong Bad song for you, phone.

***I was paraphrasing because he said it on Twitter and I deleted my Twitter a while back and trying to search for anything on Twitter without having an account is usually next to impossible. But this time I was Actually Never™ Able to find the full quote and I’m linking it because I feel like it’s**** the responsible thing do – especially because I got it a bit wrong up there – but having said that, don’t click that link because fuck Elon Musk and fuck Twitter. Anyway:

Sometimes I feel like my most extreme belief is that if a website is too big to moderate, then it shouldn’t be that big. If your website is SO BIG that you can’t control it, then stop growing the website until you can. You don’t have a right to a profit at the expense of society – Ryan North, September 3, 2021

****You guessed wrong again, phone! Scalawag!