the World Wide Web. i really like the web. i like seeing people sharing wares & graphics, games, art, music, DIYs, recipes, etc., anything that can be shared over the internet is and i think that is so deeply fuckwithable. i fuck with it. either for free, or paid with the money going straight to the dude who needs it for his next meal, i really like that. i really like that the web, as it was perhaps originally intended -- or perhaps as people, the coolest people, built it up to be -- is simply a place for all the expression & communication you can fit inside of it. i consider Miku, Hatsune Miku, to be the mascot for this aspect, my favorite aspect, of the web. i mean, she's my personal mascot of the web, nobody else has to agree, but my personal reasons for this are that Miku was originally intended to be an expensive, official product distributed by one company in one corner of the world, and then artists, human artists, some of them having bought the original, started making copies of her to share. and offshoots of her, friends for her, like Teto and Gumi. and they worked with her to make covers of their favorite songs, and originals, too. she became an instrument that anyone, anywhere, could play. today, Miku is everywhere. she is singing with the people of the world, all over the world.
one thing i've learned from living is that everything beautiful & good also has nearly unimaginable amounts of blood all over it. this is not a law of nature, but a law of capitalism, colonialism, and you have to be able to hold both truths at once. i do not want to speak on behalf of miners in the Congo, but i have heard from decent sources that approximately what they need, other than direct aid (which you can find asks for on any social media), is for the rest of us to stop making new tech. and yes, just like the web itself belongs to all of us, the responsibility for what is happening to the Congo belongs to all of us. i don't care if people do hard drugs if they're being relatively non-harmful about it (i gave you a double meaning of harm reduction, there), but if you vape, your product is made with copper, iron, cobalt, even lithium, all gotten as harmfully as is possible in this world, and goddamn, you should quit. try weed instead, you can even grow your own! and if you already have a phone or computer, there's nothing you can do to un-have it, throwing it away won't help, but actually, keeping it for as long as possible will. using our technology for as long as possible, repairing it when it starts to fail, and recycling old parts to make new things will have an impact. i mean, [redacted] would make an even bigger impact, but i won't tell you what to do. for now, the web is a part of our world. it is ironically how i learned what was happening to the Congo myself. it is our duty to use the web, and the devices we use to connect, in a way that the Congo deserves. maybe giving more weight to things, maybe actively trying to be more creative, more genuine, trying actively to make something worthy of the responsiblity, would mean we'd maybe be making cooler stuff. maybe.
