inhabiting my own space here on the internet

i love the internet. i grew up with the internet in a time where social media wasn’t a thing and i only have the fondest memories. memories of spending my time on a computer writing stories or recording moviestar videos on my old iphone 4s to katy perry or old selena gomez songs.

i also love the opportunities the internet gives us now. never before in the history of the world have we had this many tools and this much wisdom right at our fingertips. never before were we able to create entire worlds online, not even having to leave our seat while doing so.

something i struggle with immensely though, is the way you are put on a box when you present yourself on social media. you are immediately put into an aesthetic and a niche. people make up a few keywords about you to understand you and overall, you are supposed to make yourself easily digestable for people. after all, it would feel deceptive to see your favorite cottagecore-fairy-like influencer who usually dances around exclusively in flowy pastel dresses to suddenly appear somewhere wearing all black with a jean jacket on, wearing big black sunglasses. it would feel like that person is living a double life, it would feel like all that person does is for show, right?

but when did it start? when did it start that we as individual human beings should be ‘‘on brand’’?

i’m sure this existed before the internet. maybe a few neighbours gossiped about you if they saw the nice & kind girl suddenly rebelling and doing something not in theme with her reputation. but i personally think things got really out of hand when the age of social media, without our permission, took us all by storm.

grid posts, a round profile picture, 150 character word limit for your bio, same profile structure for every account.

i had never given this much thought, but now when i list it all, it seems absurd.

to limit our presence to other people to a given structure and word limits.

instagram and social media quite literally forces us to put ourselves into boxes so we can be a part of their platform. and of course we can leave, uninstall the app, just not use it. but it also sucks that this also takes away major upsides and bonuses that these platforms can give us.

something that sits very right with me at the moment, is this website.

when social media feels loud, crowded, dystopian and limiting - this website feels calm, limitless, inspiring and authentic.

creating and nurturing my own place here on the internet genuinely makes me feel like i created my own world, my own little universe, where i possess full creative freedom.

but do people care about websites anymore?

do people even have the attention spans for websites anymore?

will the works, words and creations on this website stay hidden and dusty while fast paced content by influencers online gets seen by 5 million people? because i do have a voice and i do not want my world to stay hidden, i do have things to say and i do have things i want to share with the world. but why does it feel like i have to scream and sacrifice my wellbeing just to get my messages out there, even when it truly doesn’t feel aligned. why do i feel so bad for not posting 7 second reels anymore because it feels like i suddenly lost all my visibility and power to make a difference in this world.

why do i feel pressured to sacrifice wellbeing for visibility or possibility to bring my message out into the world and for it to be seen?

i don’t have any of the answers now and i’m curious to see when i will.