Bring back the love
It’s been a rude awakening for digital dreamers but nostalgia is a waste of time
When I started bloggin’ and tweetin’ for BBH Labs in 2010, I didn’t need to be schooled on their ‘No Snark’ rule. We were excited and engaged and optimistic about emerging technologies and about web culture, because the web was exciting and engaging and the promise of the web, to enable different and better connections between people seemed to be an optimistic one.
And then things weren’t so cheery.
‘When you were so in love with me, I played around like I was free
Thought I could have my cake and eat it too, but how I cried over losin’ you…’
For a while I thought indulging in The Web We Lost boohoo nostalgia reinforced my digital cred but while nostalgia has a touch of romance about it, being a grumpy old man of the web is neither an attractive look nor a good conversation starter. Or really any use whatsoever, to anyone.
So at the back of last year I decided to box up the boohoo web nostalgia and stick it in the attic and start this new year driving forward, with only the occasional glances in the rear view mirror to remind me of where I’d been. This doesn’t mean viewing the world through a lens of heedless optimism. With hindsight, it’s easy to say that we should have been a little more critical and a little more snarky a good few years back, but that horse has long bolted.
What it does mean is remembering the things that made the web so exciting and engaging and recommitting to those things, to that spirit of progressive, positive thinking and doing and making. The building of tools and services and platforms and products that promised a newer, better way to connect and discover and learn and share and be.
I’ll keep working my way back to you, babe, with a burning love inside
Yeah, I’m working my way back to you, babe, and the happiness that died
I let it get away
(Been payin’ ev’ry day)
What this means practically is spending less energy considering how screwed things are now and pining for the days when things were less screwed and more on finding and building the good things and trying not to screw them up.
And it means thinking about what a better internet and a better internet culture means to me. It means doing work that makes the internet better, work that creates better digital experiences, a better internet culture. And it means finding people and businesses and institutions that share this sensibility and seeing if anything I’ve learned about the internet can help them and us not screw it up all over again.
We can’t go back to the web we lost. But we can and should remember and cherish the things that made us fall in love with that web. And while today’s soil might be less fertile than it was once, perhaps there are some well preserved seeds in a digital seedbank that can be successfully planted, to grow anew or cross-bred to create something stronger and better.
The new year. Time to get on the gardening gloves and pull some weeds up. Hope springs eternal.
Of course, this new resolve will also mean more writing — expect some listicles, thoughts on scaling down, a paean to friction and a plea to embrace your inner hippie.
