Programming note: remember link roundups? Well, I'm deciding to call them by a different name now. Why? So I can make a silly pun. I wanted to go with "Cool Stuff Sunday" at first, but I'm not fooling myself in thinking I'll stick to posting these on Sundays.

Let's get to it, there's a lot of stuff to talk about.

Social Media meta

For better or worse, I still think probably far too much about social media, so I can't help but be into articles about it.

Tom (Date 'em Ups): I want you to dream

You can have dreams, Cohost. And when you're finally done making one come true, you can go on and have more. Dreams are why I'm here, why I've survived, and I want you, all of you to have them, too, more than anything else. Wherever the winds take us all after this, I hope you hold onto those dreams. Don't let go of them for anything. Anything. No matter how crushing the world gets, no matter how tall the barriers to entry are, nothing whatsoever. I had to hold onto mine tightly for over two whole decades, but damn it, I willed it into reality and I'm going to keep doing the exact same thing with what's in my sights now or die trying.

Another cohost-related post, it will happen again, I'm not sorry.

Luna: Online following and Starter Packs

I want people to follow me naturally because they enjoy my posts in particular, I don’t want a tech/demoscene/gamedev/etc audience showing up in bulk just because someone else decided to put me on a list without my prior consent.

It is not a secret that I am not exactly fond of Bluesky. I use it, but I tolerate it. Bluesky's "starter packs", much like Twitter's "Follow all"^[1] feature, are... misguided? I see where they're coming from, it's hard to "build a feed" when you start on a Twitter-like website but, like Luna here, I can't help but feel this will produce Some Weird Results.

I think following a starter pack is doing yourself a disservice because you're just injecting people into your feed without getting a feel of what their posts are like, and people who are added to them have little way of doing much about it. You can "just block the creator of a pack" but this isn't a great solution. Some people might prefer to never be put in the spotlight at all, sometime it might be awkward for people to block a starter pack's creator. The fact there isn't an "opt me out" button is bonkers to me, but ultimately doesn't surprise me coming from Bluesky. But I'm just a hater, so what do I know.

Build your feed slowly but…Read more

Stealing the "link roundup" format from Jae, Shel and Dante and probably others I forget.

I want to try to make this a regular thing. I don't expect the frequency to be consistent or anything, but still.

Cohost memoriams

As I write this, it has been almost two weeks since cohost went read-only. I still have many feelings about it. I do feel slightly less sad about it after having gone to the Bay Area wake, though.

I could link to a dozen cohost eulogies and retrospectives. I liked Shel's one, and anything from Dante's roundup was also good. But here are a couple that, I think, are neat.

Bigg: Building A House Of Cum

The dissolution of a community is not value-neutral. I love my friends on Cohost’s staff and am glad that they get to move on to better-paying jobs where they will not be subjected to hideous amounts of stress daily. However, it upsets me when I think that the unique, joyous culture Cohost nurtured around porn might disappear when the site goes offline at the end of the year. It’s my dear, desperate hope that something about the experiences I’ve shared here will be useful to future porn community-builders.

cereza: a farewell to cohost.org

i know i'm not the only one, i've seen a few artists who never posted online going on cohost and posted 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.

msd (quailblog): Closing night at the Cohost Stage

Cohost meant a lot to a lot of people. To me, it meant this. A place I could see my friends art and not be bogged down with a lot of outside pressures. I don't know that I'll get that elsewhere online and it's honestly ok if I don't. I'm glad it existed. And if the closure results in tons of house shows (read: blogs and RSS renaissance) so be it.

Lena Raine: been thinking about tangible reality

sometimes it doesn't matter. sometimes it's good. for the better. moving on and into a better frame of mind. a different space. a better space.

sometimes it's just sad.

the people are the same, but the air is different. the imperceptible change in the intangible unreality makes everything feel slightly off. hairs raised just a bit. on edge. restless.

we'll probably be okay.

but i'll still miss it.

Maddie: Let's Do Laundry Together (Goodbye Cohost)

You have to be kind and empathetic and you have to love. God, you have to love something. Be a pervert, if you have to, I certainly am. You have to find joy no matter how dire the circumstances because otherwise this world will break you. It is such a beautiful feeling to love and be loved, and there is no way to achieve that through force, no matter how many people delude themselves otherwise.

Sapkaer: Cohost. This is the end, and, a new beginning.

Maybe the cohost spirit is not about the website, or eggbug, or the CSS crimes, or the memes, or the lack of metrics. Maybe the cohost spirit is simply about learning who you are, being true to yourself, and - most importantly, this is the part you should not skip - caring for others who are trying to do the same, so that you, them, all of us, can be a little more free to be ourselves. Be not afraid to care. You could mean the world to someone else.

Cool stuff I've seen or read

Ticky: Feed Buttons

Ticky made some lovely 88x31 buttons to advertise that your website has an RSS feed. They're great.

Shel Raphen: On Content Warnings

I am going to rotate content warnings around like an object, cast upon in different lights, and examine their various implementations, justifications, and effects on online spaces in particular. I hope to locate a balanced dialectic on content warning best practices.

Excellent article from Shel about content warnings. Like other folks, I realized, after the fact, that cohost's implementation of that feature was smart and man, going back to Mastodon feels archaic in comparison.

yellowafterlife: Some of the CSS crimes of all time

CSS crimes were one of these "features" that made cohost special in my heart. I hope other websites are implemented in a way that we might see this practice pop-up elsewhere, but in an age where customization and expression is limited on the Web, CSS crimes always felt like a breath of fresh air and a fantastic avenue for creativity.
This is a wonderful collection of some of the best crimes that…Read more