a farewell to cohost.org
today is october 2nd 2024. it has been 24 hours since cohost went read-only. lots has been said about it already, but fuck it i'm gonna write why i liked it
like the good 'ol days
when i was a kid back in like '08, this was the time where i discovered roblox. at the time i didn't realize what was going on but what i felt was like a sense of being an adventurer online who found an outpost full of interesting shit. random primitive blocky worlds. i'm mentioning this because cohost was a mature, less gamey version of that feeling i had when playing roblox, the blocky worlds being replaced by weird self-expression through long posts and html/CSS.because i was going thru tough times i decided "fuck it i'll use it proper" and then i did. i unrusted my CSS skills and tried doing a css crime -- what we would call posts that used CSS -- and there it was. that feeling of letting your own creavity in a space for everyone to see.
another thing i really liked is that they've removed any visible metric imaginable (exception on comments) and this automatically filtered dogshit posts you see on every other social media that are engagement baits. there was nothing to gain from posting incendiary garbage just to rile you up and win the attention economy game.
maybe you understand now why i compare cohost to '08 roblox. while roblox still had metrics and you could get tickets from place visits, in-game currency couldn't be traded for real money, which resulted in places where people wanted to really visit, like a gigantic medieval roleplay maps, a mario 64-esque adventure within roblox, or a surreal obstacle course with strange gimmicks. nowadays roblox is infested of instead of being a platform for kids to learn how to make games with very little gameplay, but that gives enough dopamine locked behind timers to get you to open your wallet.
cohost was kinda like that in a way. instead of elaborate places, you'd have insane feats using CSS. any day you could get on your timeline and check posts, and you would be blessed by a hilarious shitpost that made great use of CSS. here's one of the craziest ones i've seen. it also lead to a lot of people that have never done HTML/CSS to learn how to make their own CSS crimes, which fuckin' rules cause now these people have some experience to make their own web spaces, which a lot of people have done, me included.
honestly cohost might've saved my ass
real talk : running a social media with the goal of turning a profit is a fool's errand. the cohost team knew that, but they didn't give a fuck and they still made it. it wasn't flawless, the team definitely made mistakes in prioritizing features and helping users connect better, moderation wasn't that great and the way they'd keep the boat floating set a timer until the cohost experiment would be over from day one. despite that, what resulted was a reminder of why the internet needs small enclosed spaces for people to interact, where the people aren't the product. i think it's too early to say with absolute certainty, but cohost's existence may have helped me pick myself back up and appreciate myself again.i won't go into details, but an experience with an abusive sociopath left me pretty in a state of disarray for years. i was isolating myself entirely, only going out for groceries or exercise, playing games that made me feel shitty and angry and other self-destructive behavior. i'd constantly avoid any sort of interactions online, because i was paranoid that anyone who showed me affection would hurt me once i reciprocated. it fucking sucked. while i still struggle with it, cohost gave me enough strength for me to be able to fight that paranoia. it reminded me why i liked the internet in the first place.
i know i'm not the only one, i've seen a few artists who never posted online going on cohost to post their art for the first time online. i'm confident we're gonna see artists, writers, whathaveyou in the coming years who will point to cohost as where they started out.
closure
as of writing, cohost will still be accessible. but at the end of the year, cohost.org will redirect to the webarchive machine, essentially causing us to lose a lot of obscure posts. this, and now i kinda don't have a social media space i feel like i can talk about anything without some shitheel searching posts to start arguments. the closest equivalent would be a tightly knit discord.for those who are sad and don't share the hope i have, i understand. but believe me when i tell you this : the internet still can be magical, you just have to make it so. take a knife and carve your name on any tree of the jungle. someone will see it. it's highly probable you won't know, but that's okay.
#eggbug4eva