Proof of life: Newsletter changes and other stuff
Proof of life: Newsletter changes and other stuff
Hey. It's been a while
Guten tag! Welcome to Semi-Online, issue #13.
Your eyes are working just fine. After six months of neglect, yesterday I decided to make some major changes to this newsletter. They mainly involve the name and logo (or what passes as a logo with my limited Canva skills š¤£ļø). However, issue numbering will stay the same as I donāt want to delete whatās already here.
In case youāre curious, I have a few reasons for implementing these changes.
New name, hu dis?
As I said here, Iām obviously not as āonlineā as I was in years past.
Being āvery onlineā isnāt just about staying updated with the headlines and hot gossip. It also means devoting much of my personal life and time to little things on the internet that shouldnāt matter to me; or reacting to and chiming in on various topics in real time as a form of participation, protest, public record, and performance. Iām not into all that anymore, nor do I have the speed and patience for it.
And as hard as I try to catch up, I still donāt understand the latest memes, jokes, and references; know the people I need to know; or get worked up over idiotic issues. My nieces and nephews have also called me āoldā and laughed at me whenever I tried to have them explain certain Gen-Z things. At this rate, I donāt think I ever will catch up. Some things should be left to the young who havenāt been eaten alive yet. šļø
Given those things, Very Online sounded like a lie, no? I hated that. So I did something about it.
The other side
Using a name that doesnāt fit anymore also meant I was looking too much at the āonlineā aspect ā and not much at the āofflineā part.
Sure, weāre digitizing more and more of our lives today, and weāre becoming more dependent on the internet for everything. Yes, the Philippines and Southeast Asia have always been overlooked and under-served tech-wise compared to countries in the Global North. And the ways we go online (and why) in this part of the world are different from everyone elseās. All of these deserve attention.
But I also think the opposite sideās equally interesting. If Iām turning over more of my life to the digital suck ā for example, work, business administration and taxes, friendships, finances, entertainment, healthcare, relocation, and fitness ā what would be left for me (and just me!) when the WiFi and data access are off? What do I like to do and see and spend my time on when Iām not online and not judged by people hiding behind screens? Whatās my analog identity?
If youāre having as hard of a time answering those questions as I didā¦
This is the perfect cue to take a literal Millennial pause, and make changes here too. Instead of focusing only on the internetās creep over everything, I should start reclaiming and doing more āanalogā detours, or at least do more low-tech or no-tech stuff to balance it out. Touch grass, all that. But still with a mask on because COVID-19 is now endemic because humanity is shit, and that will never change. š·ļø
I wouldnāt say this is an existential crisis; itās more of a life assessment. But it could very well be a crisis of some sort. I donāt know anymore. š¤·āāļøļø
TL;DR
I made big changes to the newsletterās name and logo, plus I tweaked its topic/focus a bit.
Thereās nothing to worry about on your end, and Iāve been as thorough as I could be with the tedious digital housekeeping. (This isnāt my first self-hosted WordPress rodeo, LOL). But if you see any broken links, missing images, or other errors, please let me know and Iāll get to it ASAP! šļø
Also, yes, six months is too long for zero updates. But life happens, and one of the things Iām relearning as well is to stop apologizing for that. šļø
Still, thank you for sticking around, and Iāll do my best to write in here more often! If you have any comments or suggestions for topics I should cover here, or other changes I should make, please let me know.
Before I goā¦
Here are some of the reads, tunes, and videos that Iām loving these days ā and maybe you would, too!
Yeah yeah yeah, theyāre all online. I know. Give me time, OK? šļø
A friend from my MFA Creative Writing days loves to send me social media content he thinks Iāll be interested in. Basically, he does what Iām doing to you now, only in private chats.
A couple of days ago, our conversation turned to pathography and autopathography, or medical patients writing about their illnesses and their life experiences with them. Aside from my intense envy that todayās MFA students now have pathography as an actual elective, it reminded me of this The Millions article from April 2023. Iām currently writing about my own experience with SSCD, so this writerās book would likely be a great resource for me.
The downside of having digital nomads take over your town: youāll be priced right out of it. As if we didnāt have enough life problems already. šļø
BTW, I highly recommend Rest of World! Its longreads are always šļøšļø And as its name suggests, its stories focus on the parts of the world that get little to no attention.
I am so offended on behalf of my friends, former colleagues, and former grad-school classmates who love (and/or need to) publish in peer-reviewed journals. Pay to play? Fuck right off this planet.
This is not a drill. After a 24-year break, Everything But The Girl is back! šļø
Honestly, the only complaint I have is that this comeback album is just 35 minutes long.
I swear, the entire There I Ruined It YouTube channel must be treated as an international treasure.
Iāve said it before, and Iāll say it again. Social media āpoetryā is just a bunch of sentences cut up to look like art. Or as the pretentious would say, ahrt.
But sure, letās call it ābad poetryā.
Lastly, I canāt get over the fact that Karen Gillan was just filming freely on set and they all let her. I suppose Marvel Studioās infamous secrecy isnāt as strict anymore But Iām quite happy with this behind-the-scenes look at the last Guardians of the Galaxy movie!