last year was the wednesday of all years, which is a difficult accomplishment for anyone with a living memory reading this post close to when it is first being published. if that’s not you, I’m honestly thrilled you’re reading another new year post, because it means I’m either successful or controversial enough to have everything I’ve ever said combed over, or you are also the kind of person that ignores publish dates.

establishing tradition on the web is difficult when most of the tectonic movement on it results from mudslides that wash away our geocities shrines. tradition, even in meatspace, is already a difficult and transient accomplishment too. americans will probably eat ham on easter until we find ourselves fully unchurched. kentucky for christmas only started from the 70s, which still might qualify it as an ancient tradition the further it lasts after the post-war period and the closer we get to preheating the next great war nuking it in the microwave. pekora keeping my chicken cold is fully tradition this year too, now that it has gone through enough ritual posts that have allowed it to emerge as a festivus for the rest of us. the further removed we are from a sincere tradition of food shrines on christmas, a pure love, the more I will still never change my hikikomori ways.

publishing online, especially independently, is a tradition I considered under threat even before taking on a website like this one. this has less to do with publishing being a hard accomplishment, but either there being less appetite to publish online or even less meaning in the act at all when it cannot be discovered or can be hallucinated privatively. discovery was hardly a serious concern when we were making geocities shrines and checking our guestbooks, but I think it probably is the residual expectation of winning the algorithm that makes people go public when their selfies are now being mined in grotesque ways. even as the novelty has dramatically diminished, when being online in its widest and most open surfaces now feels actively detrimental, the expectation is hard to unlearn. running dedicated websites that do not make contact with socials is, in some ways, reverting to what has always been true about going online: you need a qualified sickness and ego to bother announcing your presence, or think there is a commons inside the noise worth enriching. there are sickos that do this purely for hobby, with no expectations of eyeballs or dollars, that will outlive any outlet that subsists on advertising revenue. there are also lolcow tippers and their aligned parties, seemingly the uncomfortable last lines of defense for publishing remaining a reasonably accessible option at all.

a lot of that tradition I have managed to breathe life into this year, thanks to discovery not being completely dead on the open web either. as far as I can tell, this blog doesn’t have all that many inbound links. the handful that have popped up around are the only reason I know this blog has achieved any readership at all, or why I have been fortunate enough to contribute on an anthology like vocaloid culture. what that has imparted on me is that the doujin ethos does, as always, struggle not only to survive against hardship, but has continued forging the backlinks that bridge creators and audiences in ways that platforms have forgotten. the great fortune of this ethos is that it has mostly, until very recently with crowdfunding and some digital storefronts, remained insulated from an expectation of audience or profit and has strong bones. for the web at large, where the initial hysteria over government control on it was missed for the weight of corporate influence that would infect it, it is not such a hopeless endeavor still to dream and work for better. I am still hopeful, as well, that making a living on the web can be more completely separated from malicious hosts.

there are parallels on the web in the corporate pressures that have attempted to wash it, and yet people are finding their way to each other one way or another. game jams are being scheduled, zines are being mailed, and collaborative anthologies are being bound. virtual worlds are creative undergrounds that are not drunk with their technologies or formats. comiket and its descendants are an important flare that return participants home, even as they have teetered on uncertain futures. while tuning to the signal on the web is probably more difficult than it has ever been, without better social glue than invitation-only discords, it is broadcasting out there, faintly, if you are hunting for it. out on reconnaissance or inside enemy territory, it is comforting to tune back and recalibrate to the fuzzy lincolnshire poacher.

survival was already my personal repeating mantra last year, before it became its overall tenor. for as much as can be seen surviving against adversity, the retreats are often unseen, unknown, or initially numbing. one of 4chan’s only remaining heartbeats is its celebratory traditions, the sora no woto broadcasts and mogra threads, which were luckily not caught by the one month of downtime it experienced in april. with how much has been fantasized about the site finally kicking the bucket, I found myself mostly aloof about the seeming finality of it all, knowing these communities would pick up the pieces elsewhere in hobbled IRCs or on other alternatives. platforms, even at 20 years of age, are shifting sands. they are only as long, or as good-natured, as their inhabitants and hosts want them to be. the sands from 4chan have long been scattered, both good and bad, to other websites and communities that do better to enforce against shitposting ironically. without an equal intake seen on alternative bulletin boards matching its contraction, I expect to find even more comfort with decay and dilution this year. it is difficult to give up comforts and hope for better, much the way I have refused to give up IRC.

the numbness is recognizable, either from hikikomori behaviors that have long enveloped me or a self-preservation that I see more of you around me retreat to as chaos rains needlessly. the reality for an atomized site like this one is that when I am gone, it is likely to survive only as long as the readers for it are around to fish for it in archives and keep it fresh in working memory. survivor, fittingly, was one of my dad’s favorite shows to tune in on regularly before he passed a few years ago, and while I have not made tremendous effort to continue the ritual of mugging jeff probst every week, the longevity as it approaches a 50th season does leave me a little awed and fond for the regularity when we did watch it. I am certain, with more time and distance to accept the fate of what is lost, I can develop more fondness for an absence that breaks through any numb.

the ambition for longevity on this site, or even to potentially blossom it further, is not misplaced. it was effectively the first full year that it has gone off in its own direction without another platform anchoring the presentation or providing even a minimal feedback. my desire to have more regular posts of “idle explorations and simple curiosities” sputtered simply because when it comes to fishing expeditions, I can’t help myself from wanting to pull up and exhibit whole oceans with me. I’d like to survive long enough to see myself develop a better discipline for this. what I have fished up this year, however, I recognize is a pride mostly for myself, inspired by artificial flower stands and banks of digital dust. when you look up to see fire pouring down even harder this year, surely our final denouement, I hope at least a few of you will see I have left the light on for you to find some comfort, or enrichment, or curiosity in the results too.

Hey, this world really is cruel
You wished for a day like this
But your silent body
Is blooming here