The writing on the wall is inked in blood and written in big bold letters. America is changing. Our government is attempting to erode our rights, if not in explicit legislation, then in social engineering and manipulation. As strange as it seems, the internet is paramount in this issue. The internet is an efficient method of disseminating UNFILTERED information quickly and freely. The corporations who have captured our minds by creating social media platforms are seeking to change this. The internet is now a place where people are corralled to the same 3 or 4 social media sites where content is FILTERED to meet the interests of state and industry. They may provide a free service, but as the old adage goes, IF SOMETHING IS FREE, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. These companies make a living on the personal data you give them, and unfortunately, IT MAY BE USED AGAINST YOU. If the federal government gets its way, it will be able to use social media as an effective tool in silencing/prosecuting dissidents and spreading harmful propaganda.

            Let's face it - YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA. Moreover, AMERICA MAKES PROPAGANDA TOO. Whenever someone is telling you how you should feel about an ideology or situation, YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED. It is very easy to outsource our critical thinking to pundits and other assorted loudmouths, because we are all very busy making a living. This is the way the upper class wants it to be. They want your life to be dedicated to making them richer, and they breed obedience by using high definition cameras, production studios, well-paid actors or influencers, and SKY-HIGH RHETORIC to puttify your brain matter and mold it into a self-hating sculpture of their design. Let's face another thing - THE GOVERNMENT TAKES YOUR MONEY AND USES IT FOR THINGS THEY PROBABLY SHOULDN'T. This includes throwing money at three-letter organizations in hopes of conquering other landmasses on the planet and transforming them into real estate, as well as trying to assert as much control as possible domestically. The ultimate goal is for YOU (YES, YOU) to live and die for the greater good. The greater good is transforming your lifeblood into profit for YOUR OWNER and nothing else.

            There are many ways the government does this. You are indoctrinated as a youth into believing the only proper way to live is to perform endless busy work through your adolescence and teen years, accrue a shattering debt in exchange for certification that you are indeed smarter than the average peon who can't afford it, and become a VALUABLE ASSET TO SOCIETY BY SELLING YOUR TIME AND YOUR BODY FOR THE RIGHT TO EXIST. If this works right, there will be a very large pool of people who are relegated to service for their entire life because THE COST OF EXISTING EXCEEDS THE PAYMENT RECEIVED FROM ENDLESS SUBSERVIENCE. They tell you that the harder you work, the more money you will get, and if you're a really good worker, someday you can retire and live happily on what you've earned. THEY TELL YOU THIS TO KEEP YOU STUPID. If you really had some sense, you'd know that the average joe is taxed and tariffed to high heaven by almost any excuse imaginable. You must pay for the right to perpetually own property. You must pay for the right of transportation. You must pay for the right to pay for goods and services. After the bill comes in for meeting your responsibilities, you will realize that THEY PUT MONEY IN YOUR POCKET WITH ONE HAND AND TAKE IT OUT WITH THE OTHER.

            If you're lucky, you were born to a wealthy family with connections, in which case you need not worry about the banal responsibilities of the common folk and will likely be encouraged to JOIN YOUR ANCESTORS IN EXPLOITING EVERYONE THEY CAN. Some common folk with low morals also have the chance to defect into this tribe, albeit a lower chance than your standard-issue heir or heiress. Those with integrity and morals, however, need to GET REAL - THERE IS NO WAY TO OBTAIN EXCESSIVE WEALTH WITHOUT SCREWING PEOPLE OVER.

            That being said, let's consider the motivations of the people who own your favorite social media site. Their motivation is to make as much money as they can off of you. They do this by designing their platforms to be as addictive as possible. They want you to be addicted to their platform because THE MORE YOU USE IT, THE MORE MONEY THEY MAKE. They make this money by running ads, selling your information, and in other shady ways I'm sure we don't know about yet but will know in about 20 years from now when there are criminal proceedings. There are plenty of criminal proceedings that have already happened which prove these companies are acting completely in their own self interest regardless of the effect it has on society, legality/morality-be-damned. This means that while they make money off of all the time you waste watching stupid videos about the latest influencer drama or Taylor Swift album, they also make money off of the time you waste getting angry and arguing with others about political misinformation or other contentious issues. THEY ARE VERY HAPPY TO SERVE YOU CONTENT THAT WILL MAKE YOU ANGRY BECAUSE THIS MAKES THEM MONEY.

            Therein lies the problem - what do you get when you cross a business that makes a living off of animosity, discord, and endless debating, with a government which is eager to assert influence over the minds of its constituents? The answer is CENSORSHIP AND MIND CONTROL. The proof is in the pudding. Elon Musk, one of Trump's newest lackeys, owns Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, is doing everything he can to get in Trump's good graces, including donating a million smackaroos to his inauguration. TikTok, on the verge of being banned in the U.S because OUR GOVERNMENT DOESN'T LIKE THE SPREAD OF INFORMATION THAT GOES UNFILTERED/UNEXPLOITED FOR THEIR PURPOSES, praises Trump for saving the very platform that he pushed for to be banned in the first place (after being down for about 12 hours). Trump did not do this because he is concerned with the wants and needs of the American people, but because HE WILL SEE TO IT THAT TIKTOK WILL BECOME EXPLOITABLE FOR HIS PURPOSES. This could mean censorship, dissemination of propaganda, or use of sensitive data. You should not put this past him because HE IS A CONVICTED FELON.

            See the problem? Bootlickers are quick to defend anything our government does by providing criticism of other countries like North Korea or China where the internet is much more locked down and censored. This does nothing but slightly heighten the trajectory of the stream in the nationalistic-pissing-race that us Americans just can't get enough of. Unfortunately, it also increases the velocity of the wind blowing the piss right back in our faces. LET'S FACE IT - NATIONALISM IS A JOKE. Zealots who bust a blood vessel at the burning of Ol' Glory are wasting their time. A FLAG IS NOTHING BUT A PIECE OF FABRIC. It may be a symbol of whatever the eye of the beholder wishes to attribute to it, but that's all it is -  A SYMBOL. No amount of tarnishing or criticism can ever actually cause harm to the positive qualities of our nation that we attribute to it (not to mention that our country is literally built on the protection of the freedom to criticize the government and burn a flag if you feel so inclined). Living in the supposed "bestest and most freest and most godliest" country on the planet MEANS NOTHING, especially because IT IS A SUBJECTIVE MATTER ARBITED ON THE BASIS OF COMPARISON, WHICH PROVES NOTHING. Furthermore, even if this was the case, the bar is very low, and we're hardly a centimeter above most of the countries that we consider to be below us. THERE IS NO REASON WE SHOULDN'T WORK ON MAKING OUR COUNTRY A BETTER PLACE THAN IT ALREADY IS BECAUSE WE'RE "THE BESTEST". In fact, when we stagnate and become complacent with our surroundings, people who use their power for their own benefit will be quick to make changes that screw you over. They will even convince you that you should allow them to do this, and that if you don't, you are a stinking degenerate communist in need of correction.

            What can we do about this? Although we are told we have the power to change things through democratic intervention, such as voting or talking to your local legislator, MONEY TALKS. Unless you can outspend these social media companies, there isn't much you can do, legally speaking. We have to play this game in a different fashion.

             

WE MUST MOVE UNDERGROUND.

            Before social media, people hosted their own content. This came at a slight cost, but there were also many ways in which this could cost little to no money. This web was a different place - the barrier of entry was much higher, but what we paid for in hosting costs and time learning HTML, we earned back in FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. That web hasn't left, although social media companies would like you to believe it has. When you use their services, what you don't pay for in hosting and time, you do pay for in the limit of free speech, censorship, and other various forms of manipulation that you have no control over. Although social media may have made the spread of information much more efficient and coherent than jumping from website to website, PROFIT MOTIVE IS THE BOTTOM LINE, and therefore these companies have no obligation to provide you a good service without bombarding you with ads or selling your information.

            The only way we can change the trajectory of the modern internet is to change the way we use it. One way we can help ourselves and each other is by peeling ourselves away from our phones (and by extension, social media apps) and spending this time more productively. Easier said than done, sure, but recognition is half the battle. The less money these platforms get, the more inclined they will be to change for the better. If not, at least you're hurting their stock value! Chances are you are addicted to social media. Lord knows I am - instagram dominated my life for years, scrolling endlessly through dumb memes and news about injustice and wars that stressed me out past my breaking point. Once I deleted these apps from my phone, a giant weight lifted off my shoulders and I found more motivation to work on personal projects. Although I do have accounts that are used to post my work (because that's the best way to get it seen nowadays), I access them the way I would access my email. I use them strictly on my computer to make posts and check notifications. This somewhat circumvents the all-too-easy scrolling trap I used to get caught in for hours (scrolling with a mouse is a bit harder).

            Another way you can make a change for the better is by hosting your own content. This is a relatively simple task all-things-considered; there are plenty of resources on the web for making your own website, and services such as Nekoweb or Neocities make it so you can host this content for free. If you are more technically inclined, you can literally host a site on an old computer you don't use anymore connected to the internet - it's that simple. There is a large benefit in hosting your own content in that YOU CHOOSE WHAT THE WORLD SEES. This means you can post without worrying about shadow bans and deletion. Better yet, you can make it look as pretty or as ugly as you want to. Whatever it is you want to share with the world, be it art, writing, music, or anything conceivable, YOU CAN DO IT ON YOUR OWN TERMS. This is the ultimate way to stick it to social media - by providing a way to access your content in a fashion that you control from top to bottom makes you stand out from the crowd and allows total freedom of expression.

            We use social media because it makes sharing easy. People who want to see what you do can opt in to seeing your content, and have it available in one easily digestible neverending feed. While this has its benefits, it also causes some problems. It makes it very easy for us to conk out and get lost in scrolling for hours, therefore cheapening the impact of the things that we do see. How much can something really mean to us if it's competing for the same space of a million other things which may or may not ask the same amount of mental energy from you? An artwork that took months of love and work to produce therefore has equal value as a video of Joe Blow telling you why "trannies" are the real problem with America. Both have equal space on your feed, and both are forgotten just as quickly as you saw them. What we create is now cheapened by the platforms we share it on. A great way to foster a deeper connection with your audience is to give your content a place in which it has its own room to breathe, so to speak.

            When you show your audience you care about your work and give them a way to consume it freely, perhaps with a bit of pizzazz as you see fit, your work becomes more than just a post on a feed. It becomes something far more memorable because it doesn't get stored in their brain under the "Twitter" or "Facebook" folder (if that makes any sense). It is no longer a post, but an experience. You are no longer a content creator, but an artist, a poet, a model, a photographer, you are what you want to get across to whoever is willing to hear it. Better yet, WHAT YOU SHARE IS NOT FILTERED BY SOME TWO-CENT ROBOT ACROSS THE PLANET. Even better yet, YOU ARE NOT SERVING PROPAGANDA AND/OR ADVERTISEMENTS THAT BENEFIT THE RULING CLASS (unless you're into that sort of thing).

            The last form of internet resistance I can share is, well, getting off the internet. Novel concept. The noble practice of print media has been practiced for decades. Go to your local FedEx office, make some copies of your work, be it artwork or writing, bind it together and share it with your friends. You can even charge 'em a couple bucks for the trouble or just give 'em away for free if you like. Leaving zines, CDs, or stickers in a public place, although risky in terms of actual turnover, is actually a safer gamble than trying to reach a random potential enjoyer of your work than on social media (at least I think so) - a better and more fulfilling way to spend your money as opposed to placement on an influencer's page or *shudder* giving money to Meta, Musk, etc. to push it onto people's feeds. Our forefathers (read: your cool uncle) used to do this back in the day. Not only does it have the added effect of grabbing more attention and automatically presenting more value than a social media post, but it also by design KEEPS THE GRUBBY FINGERS OF MASS SURVEILLANCE OUT OF THE EQUATION, at least to a larger extent than using the internet provides. This is a great way to foster political discourse without being logged on some sort of list as a "potential domestic terrorist" for thinking that burning coal for energy is wasteful and harmful to our planet or that there is systematic racial injustice (before you ask, yes, this is enough for you to be considered a potential terrorist in the United States of America!)

            Are you a videomaker looking for an offline solution to sharing video? Go to your local thrift store and find a DVD burner! Although most modern electronics have usurped the disc drive, they can be easily obtained at a low price and integrated with your computer or television. Beyond making DVDs compatible with your everyday DVD player, they can also be used to store any type of data (in most cases up to 4-ish gigabytes of it, in some cases 8-ish). This way, if you figure your recipient has a disk drive paired with a computer, you can put an HD MP4 on the disc and they will be able to watch it that way! If you're a hipster grab a VCR and some shitty Disney tapes to record over for that retro feel. These solutions have a bit of a learning curve, require some time and money, and don't usually provide HD quality, but what you lose in fidelity you gain in the benefit of ownership, curb appeal (for lack of a better term), and the possibility of a little profit.  If these solutions aren't good enough and you want to serve HD content reliably to your audience, you're probably going to need to do it over the internet. There are many more ways to share a video than just posting it to Youtube which I won't get into here (all you need to know is that modern video codecs are so efficient at compression that you can probably host HD videos yourself at a very low cost). The benefit of sharing self-hosted video over the internet is a lack of corporate meddling (noticing a theme in this editorial yet?)

            Are you a musician? Good news! Your DVD drive can most likely burn CDs. Even better, CD-quality audio is perfectly acceptable, despite what you have heard from most self-proclaimed audiophiles. The music you stream on the web is actually worse quality than what you get from a CD! Deadstock CD-Rs are so cheap that you can find them for pennies on the dollar at your local thrift store. The obvious problem with the ideas I've just presented is that most young people simply don't buy CD or DVD players anymore, and even if they did, they may not have a PC, TV, or stereo that they can connect these appliances to. The best way to reach as many people as possible is unfortunately going to be through the major channels, such as Youtube, TikTok, Spotify, etc. However, if more people begin adopting methods of distributing content outside of these channels, then the desire for these appliances will increase proportionally. Just think of the "vinyl" revival - at one point LPs were worthless, and today they make more in sales than CDs. This proves that people seek to own artwork without having to use an internet service, and it furthermore proves that those in your audience who connect with your work are willing to spend money to consume it. By extending an olive branch into a way to consume your work outside of the popular methods, you will stick out in your audience's mind!

            So, moving underground means abandoning social media completely? Not necessarily. We are going to have to be smart about how we move forward - we will need to use social media as a method of above-ground advertisement, but as more people adapt ways of spreading information outside of these platforms, then the need for these platforms will shrink. They may not go away completely, or even be overtaken by underground methods, but I think tipping the scale a bit more can only be a good thing. This benefits everybody except shareholders, CEOs, politicians, and advertising agencies. Boo hoo. We've taken it up the keister for long enough, haven't we? If you've read this far I hope you consider the ideas I've presented to you and encourage you to take control of your own internet presence. Neocities and/or Nekoweb is a great place to start. There are many other platforms that can help you host content at little to no cost. The unfortunate thing about going underground is IT WILL TAKE WORK. It will not be easy. It will require much more effort than clicking "post". I, however, believe this is the benefit of this approach, not a detriment. By spending more time and energy to build your work and the way in which it will be served, you make it more valuable to your audience. By fostering a community in which we all work to express ourselves while also sharing the work of others, we can rebuild the web into a way of communicating that is much less restricted and more mutually beneficial. If it gets to the point where the government seeks to limit this expression, well, there may not be much we can do about it, BUT AT LEAST WE TRIED!

            I know most people have no interest in making a change and I find it highly unlikely that most people will adopt this way of thinking. To me, that is A-OK. The great art movements of human history have all happened underground (and art is more than just a painting or a song, it's anything someone creates in spite of the forces that surround them). The way the public creates and consumes art will always change, and the traditional methods of consuming art eventually become enshittified and influenced by corporate interest. Just look at your local movie theater or what they're airing on Nickelodeon. There is simply no opportunity for lowly creatives like you and me to "make it" in the industry unless they're rich enough, know enough people, or gurgle enough prawn and bend to every last studio note. This is because, in the eyes of the bigwigs, "CONTENT" IS AN INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY AND NOTHING ELSE. Likewise, to most people, "CONTENT" IS A DISTRACTION AND NOTHING MORE. This is just the reality of the situation, and I say to each their own. If you are okay with allowing the people who have influence over these platforms to manipulate how you consume content, more power to you.

            Some of us seek more than what is considered algorithmically acceptable. Unfortunately, great art will never be government approved. It will be reviled at large by most normal people until 100 years down the line when it will be in history books. It won't be on the radio or Spotify's curated playlist unless you sell your skin to a record company. It will not be recommended on Youtube, and if it is, the artist will not be able to make a dime from the ads Google runs on their video. It will be deemed communist, satanic, degenerate, or any other variation of applicable pejoratives. To find genuinely interesting entertainment and discourse takes work and dedication. THIS IS WHY WE MUST DIG DOWNWARDS!

             A smaller audience and less competition means a better chance of actually being seen! You will be greeted with open arms by your subterranean brethren, far more obscured to the probing eye of oligarchic fascism and censorship than those on the surface. You will find your tribe and won't have to engage with things or people that make your blood boil in the name of ad revenue. Best of all, by making content consumption MORE of a hassle, our dopamine will return to more stable levels, giving us motivation to work on our own projects, or just simply to get out of bed when it seems like there's nothing to get up for. We also shake off the neverending creep of ads and monetization of content that should be freely accessible, TAKING COMMODIFICATION INTO OUR OWN HANDS. By returning the elements of discipline and effort into sharing content, we make our creations much less disposable. THOSE IN POWER WOULD LIKE YOU TO BELIEVE THAT ART IS DISPOSABLE. Join me in saying "FUCK THAT SHIT!" We're human beings, right? LET'S LIVE FOR OURSELVES, NOT SOMEONE ELSE!