It may surprise you to hear that ever since the tender ages of 15 to 16 (2004 to 2005) I have tried to “become famous” on the Internet.

Why? I don’t know. I just wanted to. I wanted people to hear my opinions on the Internet and praise me for sharing them.

I tried pretty much everything: blogging, YouTube, social media, you name it. Content that I made ranged from commentary, to news, gaming, music, cooking, etc. All my projects “failed” (or rather, they didn’t grow as fast as I expected them to, so I gave up). I’m talking hundreds of attempts.

Then in late 2023, I made a New Year’s resolution for 2024 to fully delete Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, 9gag, and Reddit. My resolution worked and it changed my life.

A lot of people in my social circle have since begun telling me that I have this talent or that talent, and that I should monitize it by growing a following on social media. I have ignored all of them, despite spending a good 20 years trying to do exactly that. Here’s why:

• The first and foremost reason is that I don’t want to wrestle with algorithms and follow trends. It seems that it’s almost impossible to grow a following on the Internet these days without doing that, unless you get very lucky growing a following organically, which only very few people do. Chasing algorithms and trends is not fun, and if I’m not having fun with what do with my spare time, then I don’t want to do it at all. I’ve also come to hate creating video content for some reason. I just find it tedious.
• Over the years, I feel that I have become afraid of getting lucky and becoming successful. It seems to me that the people who live off creating content for the Internet, don’t ever get a break. Their followers demand a steady stream of content, and if you don’t keep vying for their attention, then they’ll go give it to someone else and you’re suddenly left without any income. I know that many creators work seven days a week.
• This leads me to the problem of “attention”: I don’t want to compete for people’s attention anymore. I hate the whole concept of the “attention economy”. It’s so insane to me that the survival of so many hundreds of million of people depends of how much human attention their work gets. And I’m not talking just about social media now, but entertainment in general. There are only so many humans, and they have a limited amount of time during the day that they can offer attention to entertainment to (be it social media, TV, movies, music, games, you name it). I think that these business models are not sustainable. There are also too many “things” for us to pay attention to these days and I feel like it’s driving us all insane. I’ve been intentionally trying to pay attention to as few things as I possibly can for a while now and it has significantly reduces my anxiety and FOMO. It’s given me a lot of peace. So, I don’t want to contribute to this “evil” myself.
• The Internet has become a dangerous place. Even people who publish otherwise completely innocuous content get sometimes harassed or doxxed. Streamers get SWATed. Women get the brunt of it (I think) because sexual harassment and deepfake porn has become so prevalent, and they can do nothing to protect themselves. Everything you publish anywhere can and will be used against you (including by potential employers). Being “unknown” and “staying in your lane” seems to be about the only way that you can stay safe these days.
• I also just don’t want the endless scrutiny that comes with fame, the expectation that my personality can’t change, that opinions can’t be nuanced, and that I squarely fit into either the “blue box” or the “red box” (in whatever aspect, since every field of opinion these days seems to be thoroughly divided in half). Whatever opinion people share online, even the most trivial, can and will be misinterpreted by bad faith actors and trolls to just mentally crush you.
• I have come to think that dying in anonymity, while leaving no legacy behind, is actually not a bad thing. I mean, it’s a “natural” thing. It’s what happens to the vast majority of humans anyway. Why should I be so afraid of that? Afraid of living my life in the peace of anonymity? There are plenty of ways to live a meaningful life that don’t involve becoming famous on the Internet, or famous at all.

I regret arriving at this conclusion now only. I had so much trouble in my short and fruitless life because of stuff that I posted on the Internet (talking about Facebook and my social circle more specifically). I could have avoided all of that. I could also not have wasted so much time entertaining ideas of online grandeur, blowing away countless hours of my pitiful existence on projects that never amounted to anything, and instead, gotten an education, so that I wouldn’t be living in poverty now.

Oh, well. It is what it is. Better learning now than never.

I’m not sure why I ever wanted to be famous on the Internet to begin with, or what made me think that there’s any inherent worth in getting online praise just for sharing my mediocre opinions. Maybe I’m mentally ill. Maybe I’m traumatized. Maybe this is something that I should consult a therapist over. However, what I do know, is that I’m done with pursuing online fame.

I think that the Internet as it is today, flipped some sort of switch in people’s brain (including mine), which convinced us that it is normal to chase fame because the means to get there are so readily available. I don’t know how the Internet could have been designed differently to prevent this, but “giving a voice to everyone” was, in hindsight, maybe a badly implemented idea.

I’d be surprised to hear that any of you here have been trying to become famous on the Internet, but if you have, then I’d like to hear about your experience, and your opinions on this topic in general.

I feel like this was forecasted for a few years, and I'm not sure if places are following through with it yet.

I looked it up, and found some articles, which I haven't vetted at all:

• https://www.the-sun.com/money/9078715/mass-gas-station-closures-across-country/
• https://www.thestreet.com/retail/major-oil-company-unloading-1000-of-its-retail-sites
• https://thefw.com/shell-gas-station-store-closings/

I don't know if the political situation in the US has slowed down the gas station closures, but I'm really not interested in turning this topic into politics talk, so please save that for another topic. I'm also definitely curious what's happening outside the US, I want to hear the facts and numbers, out of curiosity for how quickly this is happening, or not happening.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Tell us something you’re proud of.

Celebrate your successes! Pat yourself on the back!

Bragging about yourself is not only allowed but encouraged in this topic.

If you’re naturally humble and don’t know what to say: pretend like this is a job interview and you have to sell everyone here on your strengths and successes.

After my last post on procrastination, it got me wondering what are successful strategies that are used by other Tilders to keep their lives on track.

When I was in university and needed to get myself on track to graduate after a bad year of school, I adopted the Getting Things Done methodology which worked great for me then, but I didn't find myself applying it as consistently post graduation.

I've been reading Atomic Habits lately as I want to improve my own habits, but I'm also thinking about a more general "how I want to organize my life" and be more proactive on managing things.

Are you a user of to-do lists, calendar reminders, sticky notes, or something less conventual? I'm interested in hearing about it.

It's easy to be wired all the time. Checking messages, performing tasks, planning for the future, making the most of every second with obvious output. But do you have any intentional inefficiency in your life? Breaks? Breaths between tasks? If so, what are they?

I often like to go on the App Store or GitHub and look for new and interesting apps, but very rarely I find really good ones. So I turn to you - what niche apps are you using, why are they niche, why do you use them specifically and would you recommend them?

Here's my Top 3:

Novel writing: I use a tiny app called uFocus for all my Markdown writing. It's lightweight, the developer is a real cool guy and it's entirely free. It has barely any features, and I like that about it. I don't use Word because it's too distracting and complicated, I used to use iA Writer but it's really not justified the updates it's gotten and is straying away from Markdown.

Email: I use MailMate, which is an insanely complicated and user-hostile email client that only works with IMAP/SMTP and does NOT support Gmail or Exchange, but is incredibly powerful at email management and search if you learn how to think like it does. It looks like it hasn't been updated since Mac OS 8, but it's getting regular updates and is very charming in its aesthetic.

Programming: I don't do much, barely some web design, but I like Zed as my editor of choice. It's not very popular, doesn't have a huge user base and barely any extensions compared to a juggernaut like Code or Cursor, but does what it does well and isn't written in Electron. It's also very performant.

So I normally don't care that much about food. But I just got introduced to r/ididnthaveeggs which is a repository of insane and ridiculous recipe substitutions from the comments sections of recipes. Even with zero knowledge of cooking, I know swapping carrot for shredded kale in a carrot cake recipe will not turn out well.

So cooks and food-eaters of Tildes, what are the most insane and ridiculous substitutions you've encountered or heard of? Especially curious if you've had the (mis)fortune of getting to try the innovative recipe for yourself.

I was reminded this morning of the video in which a physical education teacher is performing a workout dance routine in Myanmar, not realizing that she captured the start of the 2021 coup d'état in the background.

She's wearing a covid mask, dancing to an incredibly upbeat and catchy song while the military vehicles roll in to crush their democracy. I can't recall where I saw this, but I will never forget the comment someone left online about the video which read, "This is decadently post-modern."

To make it even more interesting, the song itself is a parody of authority. It's essentially a song mocking weak men with big egos, and the song title translates roughly to, "Have Mercy, Mr. Tough Guy/Big Shot"

Link to video

What other insane things do we have in 2025 as a result of ubiquitous high-definition cameras?

hi everyone —

i have been working on a new music/sound art project for a few months and wanted to include voice recordings of people. i really enjoy tildes and reading what you all choose to share and think this would be the perfect place to collaborate!

if you would like to contribute, i’m looking for a few specific things and am also open to hearing anything you’d like to send (and i do mean anything).

here are things that i had in mind:

• voicemails / ideally you would record your voice to your phone or computer using the built in microphones with a message. it could be completely made up or one you would leave someone you know. the more personal/individualized the better.
• transcription of a note / similar to the previous item, i would like to hear you read out a note you took recently. no context necessary. you could of course just make one up for this project as well.
• internal dialogue / obviously this would be a bit more difficult as i would imagine the moment the dialogue becomes external it changes shape and who thinks to even record such a thing? but it’s worth a shot!
• text i provide to you with your own interpretation on how to “perform”
• almost anything you want to send me! (just probably not anything i could get flagged for copyright infringement)
• while i’m primarily seeking voice recordings, if you record some other audio (the ambience of a public park, your commute to work, a pet making noise, server room hums, etc.), i’m open to that as well

about the project

this project is a “slice of life” of sorts with sound and visual art. with that, there would be no context to the spoken audio or visual. these audio recordings are a part of a larger project that will have ambient, drone, and experimental music as the primary focus. there will eventually be a visualization of this project but i have not locked down how that will end up being.

here are two recent examples of music that would accompany the voice recordings (though these exact songs will not likely appear on the project): 1, 2

this will be publicly available as part of my music catalog and on my website. though i did have an idea for some of the spoken audio parts to only be available on physical media or an in-person only event.

your contributions are anonymous unless you request otherwise (to be credited, split royalties*). if the recordings contain personally identifiable information, i’ll work with you on removing those parts or not using the audio at all.

i will reach out to each contributor with the final version before public release so that you can decide if you still want to be apart of it. zero pressure, no hurt feelings.

notes

none of these recordings need to be in english. i would prefer that you speak in whatever language makes you feel most comfortable and authentic.

my only request is that you don’t “make a voice” — i am looking for your natural voice and not a performance.

(*) i currently make near-zero USD on my music, so the royalties split would only be for the sake of fairness and the future possibility of it being picked up by the algorithms or something.

———

thanks for taking the time to read all of that and i hope hear from you!

edit [20.04.25] - wow, i can’t believe how many of you are interested in contributing to a internet stranger’s art project! i’m very grateful.

Hello Tilderonis! I'll be in the Vernazza area of Cinque Terre next month. While there I plan to propose to my girlfriend :)

My current plan is to find a nice part of the "blue trail" with a nice lookout, track down a florist, and prepare that spot with some of her favorite flowers before we get there. Her family is joining us on the trip so I'll get them prepped as videographers. That night I want to take us all out for a nice dinner.

Okay so now the questions-
In general any potential snags you see with this plan?

Does it matter what time? I was thinking something in the late afternoon so we can do dinner soon after. Any issues with bugs or anything at certain times?

Anything else I can do or add to make the moment a bit more special?

For dinner I'm looking at Belforte Ristorante but definitely open to suggestions.

Thanks!

I'm writing this as a way to, I guess, journal my thoughts but also share my experience, here's hoping it makes an interesting read. Sorry in advance if this feels disjointed or disorganized, I'm writing as I go.

So for those of you that don't know, today there was a massive blackout in Iberia and some regions of France, and it was a total blackout. Over 60 million people were affected.

The causes are still unclear, but it appears that it was due to a rare meteorological event that took out a high voltage line. This line distabilized all of the grid and took out the power. As far as we know, there was no cyber attack or anything of the sort.

Anyway, here's how things went down for me.

Today I woke up at 8:00 in the morning, went to work as usual. In my office, we had a completely normal morning as usual. But then, around 11:30, power goes out. Our monitors stopped working, lights shut down, ventilation system turned off, the whole shebang.

I thought, "just another blackout, should come back any moment". But then, my colleague sitting on my side, was on a call with someone in Porto - we were in another city - and that the power there was also out. (our wifi had UPS, so we had internet for a while).

While very rare, it actually wasn't the first time that this happened. Last year we had an outage that took out several regions in Portugal. So I thought, "again? Weird."

People started talking to each other, calling friends and family to ask them if they also had the outage. And sure enough, all of them did. Soon enough we started to find out that even Lisbon and Algarve were missing power, so it was a national outage.

Cellular data still worked, I started refreshing all the news websites that I knew of and checking r/portugal on reddit. These moments were... Not unnerving per se, but worrisome. Never in my life I experienced something like this.

Some news started coming in, but none of them mentioned anything that we already didn't know. Just that there was a outage and that there wasn't a lot of information about it.

Comments on reddit started saying that this outage was also international, that regions in Spain were affected. Soon after, also France. Then some also said that it happened in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.

Soon after, it dropped, and I paraphrase the title of the news: "Outage in Europe. Military personnel summoned".

My dudes, the brainstorm and red flags that went in my head at this moment...... I kept my cool and tried to stay calm, but internally I was going at 300 km/h. The only logical conclusion at this time was "Russia is f*cking invading us".

Didn't help that, at this time, there still wasn't any confirmations if it was a cyber attack or not, so all the possibilities were on the table as far as I was concerned.

I kept refreshing, waiting for the page to update with more information, while hanging out with my colleagues. After a short while, around 12:30 - I think - there were confirmations that it wasn't a cyber attack, but instead a technical incident. The comments and reports were all over the place, some said it was a fire in France, then an airplane that crashed, then it was something in Spain, etc etc. So I decided to tune everything out and only use that page as SSOT.

Glad I did that because, we all decided to go for lunch, and people were all talking about what happened. And some, started saying that russian submarines were spotted along the coast, that they saw it on Facebook. Misinformation on social today must have been on an all time high.

Our company decided to let us go home, so I got into my car and went home. While traveling, I turned on the radio to "Antena 1", a national radio station that kept giving us information about what was happening.

So for starters, yes, the military was summoned but it was to help with all the problems that we were facing. People got stuck in metro stations and elevators. Traffic lights weren't working so there were accidents. People panicked and started buying anything and everything on the supermarkets and stores. Some gas stations closed.

Some supermarkets and stores were closed due to them not being able to process the purchases. The only one that remained open were the ones with generators.

Pharmacies were also facing issues since they couldn't connect to their centralized databases (from what I understood), but there were also worries if their generators would last long enough to keep the medications in low temperatures.

As I was driving, it was also confirmed that general power would return between 6 to 10 hours, but at most it could take 72. General power should be stabilized in a week.

Once I got home, I found my old radio, that has at least 20 years, put some batteries in it and synced to Antena 1, and listened to it throughout the whole day. We're talking about an analogue radio, the kind that you have to rotate the wheel to set the frequency.

One thing that I started to appreciate, is how my iphone 12 pro max, a technological marvel, became basically unusable. While this simple piece of plastic that my parents bought for maybe 5 euros just worked. The cellular towers started to fail throughout the country, as they themselves started to run out of power (I assume they had generators). Meanwhile, this radio, it just worked.

I spent the whole day listening to it, and took the chance to watch Chainsaw man, that I had downloaded on my phone.

It was.... I don't really know how to describe it, but the fact that I could keep up with what was happening was good. The idea of just waiting without knowing what was happening is stressful. This tiny radio was my only source of information, at this point I had no internet, no TV, no calls, no text messages, no nothing, just the radio.

I know that right now it feels like I'm praising the hell out of that radio, but that's because it really did feel like the only connection I had to the outside the world, not counting my neighbours of course.

As for food and water, thankfully I was fine. But there were people that didn't have much at hand and - understandably - were scared that they wouldn't have enough for the next days.

Thankfully though, the guys over at the power plants did an excelent job and power started returning in several regions, one at a time, now at night. I got power a while back.

So... Other than the existencial dread that I got in the morning, it was fine for me personally. Although I can't imagine those that got stuck in metros and elevators and trains.

I got humbled today. We take the internet, TV, power, calls and messages for granted, but today I didn't have access to any of them, and for a while not having them for a few days was a real possibility.

In terms of food and water, I was fine, but I think I'm really going to get one of those survival kits after all, just in case. Hopefully I'll never need it but better prepared than sorry.

Hello All!

recently moved into an apartment and happy with it for the most part and grateful to have a place to call my own.

One issue has been the sound though. I am a remote software developer and work for a company that is 3 hours ahead of me. I personally prefer getting up at 3 am my time, enjoying my breakfast with a bit of TV and then signing into work at 4 am and getting off as 12 pm.

It's a life style thanks to covid and luckily landing jobs in a part of the country that is 4 timezones ahead of me but I enjoy being able to have the rest of the day for myself.

However, this move is the first time I am living in an apartment and that means sound can penetrate to neighbors. I had assumed that given the building was cement or concrete or whatever (I just know its not wood), that sound would not be an issue, but apparently given that my living room is right next to my neighbors' bedroom, I have had repeated noise complaints that I make noise during the building quiet hours (10 pm - 7 am)

Some were understandable, I was watching a movie at 3 am on a weekend and my TV is up against the wall that is shared with my neighbor. Bought some headphones and apparently that issue has gone away, but yesterday for example, I was on a call with a colleague at around 6 am and I can admittedly be loud. What I didn't anticipate was that I can be loud enough that it carries through the walls. This amongst other things (like me walking around in my own place which actually lead my property manager to push back on my behalf and tell them that's not a legit complaint they can have and makes no sense given I don't live above them) lead to a noise complaint.

Thankfully my building manager has been nice enough about it (I think cause she can tell I am not being malicious and I do want to be considerate of my neighbor, I just really underestimated how much sound travels in this building).

But this whole thing is making me a bit off about the situation cause if my neighbor could hear me on a call with my colleague, then they can also hear me when I am doing a counseling session from home if they happened to be in their bedroom at the same time and that makes me uncomfortable.

Which is making me research ways to prevent sound from my place going to my neighbors but I am by no means an expert in this field and wondered if anyone else has had experience with sound-proofing and can give tips.

It's a rental unit so it obviously can't be something that requires renovation and I prefer a solution that doesn't involve nails but if that's best, I can always ask permission from my property manager. I also don't plan to live here longer than 4 years (I hope to buy a condo of my own as soon as Trump leaves office) so I don't want to drop too much money on this.

the two things I kept coming across were:

1. acoustic panels: not sure how invasive that is and if there's an adequate brand for people on a budget.
2. a dampening blanket: but not sure how effective that is.

the wall's dimensions are 196 inch wide and 8 feet tall. However, if their bedroom is the same size of mine, it is only 159 inch wide.

Another low cost solution is just to move my desk to the other side of my living room so it's facing the opposite wall. The distance between the two walls is 160 inches and I'd be facing the opposite direction but I get worried that they could still hear me on calls if I move the desk to the opposite wall. But I also am not expert on sound dispersion and penetration so I could be wrong :shrug: