My resentment towards TwXtter has turned to hatred, so I am trying to wean myself from that awful site. As part of that process, I reflected last night on what media was like when I was younger, how I understood myself in relation to it, and what I thought (then) my future self (now) would look like.
In my early 20s, my sister bought me an old shortwave radio. The FM frequency was shot, but I could pick up shortwave stations from around the globe. I was obsessed. I used to drive out into rural areas to get better a better signal, set up my radio and listen in the car. I went to the local public library and read as many books on shortwave that I could find. That radio accompanied me to Minnesota when I went to grad school, and for a period in the 1990s, it was my main conduit to the world. Mostly I listened to Twin Cities AM radio: I was profoundly lucky to have discovered the genius of T.D. Mischke, who was on the airwaves nightly. After that it was Art Bell.
My media consumption was archaic and “old” even for its time. I listened to records, AM radio and shortwave, and read newspapers and books. I was an incurable old man even in my 20s: I wore red wing shoes from the thrift store, old Lee jeans and woolen Pendleton shirts. I lived in deep St. Paul, across the river from downtown. I had no car and took public transport everywhere or rode my bike. Even my girlfriend didn’t completely understand me. I had internet access from its beginning as a medium, through the Gopher protocol at Minnesota, but it wasn’t a major part of my life. Media was tactile and flexible, and perhaps most importantly, it clearly served me rather than the other way around. I wasn’t a site for extraction: when I played a record or tuned in to a St Paul Saints game on AM, it didn’t become part of an algorithm. There was no data to be mined, parceled and sold. I miss this model.
I’m going to try and recapture some of this, with appropriate updates of course. Here are some possible principles:
When available, subscribe to both a national paper and a local city paper. I was lucky for a period to read the St. Paul Pioneer Press; I realize the paper is different now, and for many cities and towns this kind of advocacy just isn’t viable. But where it is, please support local print journalism.
Listen to AM: programming is a lot more interesting than FM.
Listen to shortwave (see above): apps are available moreover that allow access to city radio stations globally (I listen to two Italo disco stations for example: one in Austria and one in Italy).
Minimize the megasites (Tw*tter follows FB on the discard pile, YouTube you’re next).
Read more books (perennial advice).
Podcasts are problematic. Use with caution.
Above all, acknowledge that the whole ecosystem currently revolves around extraction.
a brief postscript:
I have written before about the Gopher protocol, which was in use at Minnesota during the 1990s but was eclipsed by the WWW. My weird obsession with archaic media makes me wonder whether Gopher might still be used for art, politics, subversion, etc. But I'm not savvy enough in programming or coding to know how to proceed. Is there potential here, or am I just daydreaming once again?