basement community is one-year old baby lets get it!!!!11

i'm actually not quite sure what day I put the site online, but i'm going to assume it's december 3rd, since that's my reg date, so we'll go with that. I just wanted to take the time to thank everyone who's spent some time here, made a post or two, shared the link around, etc. I've said in the past that if nobody visited this site, I'd be totally fine with it, since this was more of a personal project for me. Depsite that, I appreciate everyone here!!.

So to properly say "thank you," I wanted to start a community event that will result in a poster winning a $50 gift card to where ever (or just cash if you prefer that). It's not much, but I'm not made of money so get off my back okay!!!?? geez. The community event will run through today all the way until January 15th, which will give users plenty of time to visit the site, see the event and participate. Lord knows people ain't checking this site everyday.

Here's how it works: a lot of you have personal sites/blogs, so the idea of the event is going to require users to write a blog post centered around the theme of internet usage. I know, this theme is super vague, which is the entire point. Interpret that as you will, there's really no wrong path you can go down here. There isn't any length criteria, but please don't just shit some 2-sentence thing out and call it a submission - that's just going to annoy everyone. And i'm just going to tell you to take your submission and stick it up your ass.

That's okay. Just post your blog in this thread and it will be counted. There's no requirement to actually have and operate a personal website

Any length, but the goal here is effort. If you're just doing it to win the money, than it's probably not worth writing anything. If you don't feel passionate about the subject, don't participate. But if you do, make sure you write with intent and purpose.

The winner will be selected at random

Yes, actually. To be counted as a submission, you need to mention somewhere in the blog that you're writing it as part of the basementcommunity.com blog event. And you must add a link back to this thread. Something like "this post is part of the https://basementcommunity.com internet usage blog event, located here: https://basementcommunity.com/threads/231" should suffice, but feel free to reference the site as you prefer.

You also must post a link to your blog in this thread, so i can find it

Most likely, I'm going to post an excerpt of your blog on my own, on https://basementcommunity.bearblog.dev, so if you submit, please note that a piece of it may appear on that website as well.

TL:DR

thank you for making and account and visiting the site. we're hosting a blog writing event. Here are the rules:

1. Blog must be centered around the theme "internet usage"

2. Blog must be submitted between now and Jan 15th

3. Blog must be posted to either your own personal site or in this thread

4. Blog must contain some effort, instead of being a low-effort cash-grab. But there is no length requirement

5. Blog must contain a backlink to https://basementcommunity.com along with some explanation of the event. You must add a link back to this exact thread

   • for example, add a leading or trailing note that reads "this post is part of the https://basementcommunity.com internet usage blog event, located here: https://basementcommunity.com/threads/231"

6. you must post a link to your blog in this thread, so i can find it

also obviously post in this thread if you're submitting, don't expect me to go searching the web for your blog posts

B-A-S-E-D.

Also, happy anniversary, yo! Congrats.

I mean to have it conveyed on my site (soon!), but I just wanted to tell you how your gradual, diligent work on Basement Community inspires me a lot. Brick by brick, ya' know? Your alt nick: glacial_pace, I love it. The good message of just putting one foot after the other, "walk the way and the way appears", y'all get what I'm saying.

Also, additional gratitude for sorta taking me in. I joined shortly after my "expulsion" from the MelonLand Forums and was a little more sensitive to online groups at the time. In my head, I was a bit like "Meant to be on my own, I guess. Not that I care! That's why I made a personal site in the first place, to have autonomy! Fug other people!" When in reality it was just a case of a mismatch. And places like this forum helped me see that.

Thank YOU, homie.

Internet Usage

Boom, baby! Way before the deadline, lessssssgo.

It's mostly a response to this Agora Road thread: Is leaving the internet the end goal?

amazing thanks for the submission and the kind words! working on the forum is always going to be the thing I default to when I'm bored at night and don't feel like doing anything else, so i'm glad to keep improving on the site and making it a better place to hang out.

it's funny that you posted that agora thread, because I was just reading this one about the internet feeling boring:

https://forum.agoraroad.com/index.php?threads/is-the-internet-feeling-especially-boring-this-week.6201/

I feel like this is one of the main reasons I deleted a lot of my other social media accounts, rather than getting a feeling of "true freedom." I just felt so bored following other people that I most likely would never talk to ever again in my life, like old college friends for example. It was pretty easy to delete my accounts when I just felt over the whole thing.

i think purging your accounts due to wanting some greater purpose or being more minimal/monk-like is a totally fine thought to have, but i really think people more-or-less are getting bored and just want something more exciting. this is a total guess though, so i might be way off-base.

coincidentally too, I wrote my submission under the topic of "the internet is boring"

https://blog.basementcommunity.com/the-internet-is-boring/

"Which is more difficult? Attaining “spiritual wholeness” in an environment designed for its cultivation? Or attaining it in spite of an “imperfect” situation? That if Mr(s). Nobody can strive towards balance in the midst of their everyday life, with all of its obstacles and struggles, then aren’t they more worthy than the recluse?"

I have seen a number of ascetic writings state this outright. Definitely Christian and Hindu. I think Buddhist, too. Not so much that one is worthier than the other, but that ascetics have chosen the easier spiritual path. It's usually used as a rationale for monks being harder on themselves than ordinary folk, and might also be part of practicing humility, but it's still a recurring theme.

Thanks for the read!

This is what got me interested in the whole small/personal web thing. I was sitting at my laptop one day and just thought, wait a minute, when did the web become such boring, samey gruel? So thanks for doing something about it by creating Basement Community.

I feel like the internet was always destined to become boring, samey gruel, and the smart phone was the catalyst. In the days before, you had to have a special machine in your home to use it, but once the internet was available in everyone's pockets, it just took a couple of sites at the right time to herd everyone into a couple of places.

The iPhone debuted in 2007, right? That's a good fit. It's still a little surprising to me just how successfully and quickly those sites sucked up all the old users along with the newbies....

Neat idea and I'd consider it except for the backlink. It feels too close to being "bought".

to each their own. feel free to take part anyway and not backlink, you'll just not be entered in the random selection

That's sorta like being invited to a party but also being the designated driver. It's all right. I'll just pass on this one.

Good to know! I thought it made pretty good sense way back when... Yeah, "worthiness", might not have been the best choice of word there. You can probably tell I don't do a lot of spiritual reading nowadays. I had my phase and sorta left it at that. Also, thank you for the monk appreciation; I knew they weren't worth rejecting outright, but that perspective definitely helps understand them better.

Thank YOU for the visit!

Kek.

The Slow Migration Away from Big Social Media May Be the Beginning of Something Much Better by Cheapskate / SpaceGhost (2023-12-22)

I personally disagree.. Feel homie is a bit too optimistic, but, sh*d, a man can hope.

oh nice we got a shout-out that's nice of them.

i think mastadon getting popular pretty much solidified for me that people are never going to move away from the feed-like way of consuming content. it's just too convenient. i also think until things like Signal and Telegram get better marketing and outreach, people are still going to rely on social networks to communicate. it's just too hard to move away for the majority of people.

Greetings Basement Community!

I'm Amelia. I've been lurking around for a while now, but I'd like to toss in my own entry as well. Last year was pretty interesting; normally I quietly lament about how the year flew by while I have done nothing, but it wasn't the case this time around.

This reminds me of a post a friend of mine made recently: Letting Go

Welcome to basement community!

Thank you for the warm welcome.

That post actually inspired the third revision of mine, because my second draft was also quite similar and depressing after my first draft faffed on way too much about all the pleasant and fun memories I had in these online games instead of getting to the point. It felt like I was just coping. I had to take a step back and ask myself "Okay, was all that time I've spent in these games a total waste?" Well... no. Some part of them objectively was, but less than I thought after writing down a concrete list.

this is really funny to read because I coincidentally re-made a runescape account along with a puzzle pirates account, a game i also used to spend way too much time on. i felt like i had time to play them because i was spending less time on social media and other sites and wanted something to replace watching too much youtube.

although it didn't last very long. something about playing these games now, they don't have the same addicting effect that had when I was in 6th grade.

welcone to the site and thanks for the submission!

also, i'm hoping to do a few more pushes for this event now that i'm back from vacation. hopefully we can get a few more people participating before the deadline

Yeah, I absolutely do not see whatever childhood me saw in these. RuneScape especially. Granted I didn't try to achieve anything either beyond just walking around and killing random things... probably. Thank you for having me.

Hello!

I learned about this event today from the blog post on bearblog. When I started thinking around the theme of "internet usage", so many experiences came to mind that I couldn't sleep before writing them down.

Here is the resulting blog post, reflecting mostly on my high school internet experience and my views on the internet today.

Awesome, loved reading it. I'd sooner say "unnatural" before "beyond my time", but I think they convey similar mindsets. Heh, I have a vivid childhood memory of my mom bringing home a "telephone" with a screen, telling me, if someone calls us, we can see them. I don't remember any of us ever using it.

Hey! A fellow PangYa player! How lovely that game was, not counting the tryhards with their overaccessorized characters and 'calculators'. A fun read, thanks for sharing.

I did think about calling it "unnatural" too! I ended up going against it as I felt most technology is "unnatural" in some way and this isn't really the feeling I wanted to convey. I think "beyond my understanding" would be a better fit perhaps though.

That's crazy about the screen telephone! I read that AT&T used to have video calling in the 1970s but it was unpopular and cancelled, despite being popular internally at AT&T. Ah I found it described on Wikipedia.

Apparently they tried a revival in the 90s with the VideoPhone 2500. I wonder if that's what you saw, considering it sold many more units?

(Image from this blog)