danbruno.net

Hello world

“I feel ten Internet years younger using this site,” I wrote last week on Mastodon. “I want to download an RSS reader and start a new blog.” It was unclear at the time, even to me, if I was joking.

I’d decided to give Mastodon another whirl after the latest round of morally reprehensible behavior from Twitter, and hanging out there has made me nostalgic for an earlier Internet age—perhaps an idealized one—when our online presences weren’t wholly mediated by huge social media platforms. This blog is my small attempt to push back against that trend. I miss having an online space that feels like my own.

That said, I imagine it’ll be hard for me to leave Twitter entirely; I’ve met lots of great people there, video game industry folks in particular, and many of those relationships effectively only exist on that platform. Plus, I’ve been using Twitter daily for more than a decade, and it’s been my sole social network since deleting my Facebook account in 2016. The habit is deeply ingrained.

But it lately feels like a change is possible, and perhaps even necessary. And so here I am: I’m going to make a go of long(er)form writing again. Subscribe in your favorite RSS reader!