Hey there year 25

Heads up intrepid travelers. This is a new custom CMS and its like 70% done, so expect issues like old posts not formatted correctly (damn you past Chris) and design elements not being up to snuff. Trust that I am working on it, as well as bringing back comments, etc.

A lot has happened in those 25 years. Kids have been born, states have been lived in, and homes bought. Now, staring down 50, living in NYS with one kid at University, and the other in middle school, things have become a lot clearer.

Community is Everything

Back when this site launched, we were are the beginning of a massive shift in how people communicated. The advent of blogs, née weblogs, gave everyone who wanted one, a voice. This was a welcome, at the time, development. Overnight millions of people started sharing their thoughts, dreams, concerns and meals.

It was the Wild West, and It Was Good.

A lot of great people started out in those days, many I call friends and some, former colleagues, today. There was this wild explosion of creativity, in both design and writing, that pushed the web forward, and made it the defining force in our lives that we know it as today.

And one of the most powerful forces behind this shift was the real sense of community we had. Webrings, Blogging Networks, 9rules when it didn't suck. These technologies and sites gave us a sense of togetherness, of belonging. Getting a notification that a new post from Bryan hit the interwebs was a clear call to participation. The day I was asked to join 9rules, again, when it didn't suck, was a day that really had meaning for me, since that was a sign of quality and meaningfulness. What I wrote and had to say mattered to people.

And that mattered to me, more than I can say.

Then Everything Changed

Somewhere along the way, blogging became business, and the community became a monetization opportunity. I mean, I get it as a business owner myself, but when community, creativity & beautiful chaos is sacrificed for a buck, we've lost what matters, what's human.

WordPress became a business, blogs moved to Medium, and then came the paywalls. Community and creativity were sacrificed on the altar of "progress" and "return on investment".

I remember the days where we shared what we knew with the world, and the engagement was the prize. I got book deals and jobs from the tutorials and plugins I wrote and gave away for free.

Now every AI slop or "Management Super Duper Hot Shortcut Monkey Force" is behind a paywall. It's sickening. And it doesn't have to be this way.

The Way Forward

I know it's mostly been doom and gloom, with a healthy dose of nostalgia so far, but I don't want to end on a low note, but a high one. Things are changing. Dare I say, nature is healing.

People are thinking about the conversation again. Writing is starting a shift, back to our control and away from the machines that have generalized and commoditized our voices under a glossy sheen of uniformity.

People are playing again. And look, I know there have been hold outs this whole time, hell I am one. This site has been going for nearly 25 years, but I will admit, I let it languish. I stopped caring about sharing what I know, and for that, dear reader I am sorry.

This used to be a place people could come to learn and by doing so, in some small way, I was helping make their world better. I want to be that again, I want this place to be that again. And so it will. It will start slow, I am out of practice, and honestly, I don't know what I have to offer anymore. If it has any value to people today... But I will say, I'm going to try.

And that is what I would ask of you. Servers are cheap these days. Software is free, even something like WordPress can get you up and running in a matter of minutes.

Take Back Your Voice and share it with the rest of us. Make crazy designs for your sites. For a moment, forget "best practices" and "accessibility" and just play.

Then add accessibility, since supporting everyone is punk rock. Especially these days.

So What Now?

I'm putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak. This new version of SSWI is built on a bespoke CMS hand crafted to make creating content the easiest possible thing for me, and this theme, as vanilla as it is, is a start.

I have always been a minimal designer, but even for me this is a bit much. But it is a start and it allows me to start working out my blogging muscles again, which is all that matter to me right now. The design will get better over time.

This is the beginning of the marathon, not the end.