You Wake Up, And It's 2012 Again

Permalink

Follow me via:

---

Text-to-speech support required

I’ve written a lot about how much I miss the 90s, and sometimes pine for an age in the 80s, and, obviously, I’m not talking … politically. But more, a time when things were less chaotic, and we were all kinda just vibing with whatever was happening. Drinking our Ecto-Coolers, slipping on Velcro sneakers, uh, watching Rocko’s Modern Life.

But sometimes I also wish it was still 2012. Still in the midst of the Mass Effect trilogy, the greatest game series ever created. Still logging onto a mostly normal Facebook to get my daily clicks in Mafia Wars and Farmville.

A time when Sims 3 was the latest and greatest of the franchise, and all I was doing in the game was walking my sim around collecting diamonds and rocks, and trying to figure out what kind of bathroom she should have. When I was still mystified by new experiences, and finding wonder in exploring new narratives. Back when the iPhone still had what I think were the best icon graphics, a headphone jack, and iPods! Yeah, I had an iPod Touch! …that I played digital poker with.

When I’d jump on Google cam-chats with friends, lay in bed, and just talk all night long, and when Youtube was just a place where people uploaded random weird stuff that wasn’t designed to pull you in and keep you there for ad-rolls and sponsored segments.

… when cigarettes only cost like, four dollars a pack.

A year wherein I’d get out of work and still have the energy to do things that I enjoy.

I miss 2012.

There’s no use living in the past, but there were a lot of great things about technology in the 90s, and 2000s, and even 2010. And then suddenly it all started going downhill. Things advanced, but for no reason. Oh boy, bigger cameras, larger screens, thinner bezels, s … streaming? I don’t own my music and movies anymore? All the casual games I liked using to pass time are on my phone? Sweet! … oh, almost all of them are copies of each other and filled with so much money-grubbing they could only really be classified as a game for the first 5 minutes that you interact with it?

Instagram is about posting engagement-bait and getting popular with short-form content until you can … get sponsored with product placement?

Twitter got murdered by Elon Musk and now it’s just nazis and ai-gen spam?

What the heck?

I miss 2012.

It’s not all bad. We got Mastodon, we got a federated network of users taking ownership of their content, and the indie web (a revival of the 90s internet). There are still good games out there, and a whole lot of indie developers who make some real gems. But, man, do you really have to sift through mountains and oceans of garbage to find content and entertainment actually worth consuming.

Or, maybe I’m just getting older, and everything is just fine the way it is.

Who knows.