I’m not old enough to really be a “net veteran” but I’m also not exactly at home in the modern internet. It’s like I’m drifting.

I remember just enough of the web from 2007ish and earlier to know it used to be a different place. But most people my age are fully locked in to TikTok, Discord, whatever the hell Threads is trying to be, and they don’t question it.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here lurking on obscure forums, saving screenshots of cool old UI design, reading manifestos about federated social networks, and trying to figure out how to install an RSS reader that doesn’t suck.

Feels like a weird place to be. Like watching the last ruins of a civilization you barely got to live in. But I guess there’s some comfort in that too?

Just wondering if anyone else out there feels this way. Or is it just me floating in a dead sea of ads and hashtags.