The Internet Sucks Now.

I more or less abandoned this blog as it seemed like blogs were a dying format, replaced by less interesting social media like Twitter, Tumblr etc. I do enjoy Twitter as a place where I can expel whatever trivial thoughts are currently in my head, and these sites are useful for promotion, but me and my girlfriend were talking at lunch today about how much we missed the more personal, substantial internet that seems to have died, or at least withered significantly. The personal homepages, forums and independent info sites have been wiped away by a few bland behemoths like Facebook, Tumblr, Youtube, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc along with all the news sites. If much else still exists, I'm not aware of it. I appreciate that the internet is now easier to use for the average person, but I was having a great time with it growing up in the late 90s-early 2000s, and the fun seems to have largely disappeared. The 'newsfeed' format discourages significant discussion or dwelling on any given topic, and I find it annoying how quickly things are forgotten or missed. It's also much harder to search for old content on these social media sites.

I used to visit a few forums and message boards devoted to animation in general, specific cartoons, indie game creation, model railways and a few other topics. I liked the in-jokes, kinship and history that developed in these communities, and the format was ideal for archiving past discussions, which could always be re-ignited. At least for me, it felt like a valuable use of time as opposed to the new social media which are often rightfully criticized as addictive but empty wastes of time.

Maybe nothing has changed except me-- the main reason I don't visit forums anymore is that as an adult I don't have the time (same reason I wasn't maintaining this blog). Another key factor is that I used to visit forums and write a blog because nobody in my real life shared my weird interests. Since I entered the animation industry, that was no longer an issue as I was surrounded by like-minded people. There's a couple of forums I still check in on every once in a while, because to this day I don't know anyone in real life who geeks out over British narrow gauge model trains and Lupin III like I do. But I just lurk these days.

I've started posting my cartoons on Newgrounds. I appreciate Newgrounds more now, probably because it did start during that internet golden age and fights to hold onto what made it special. Newgrounds has barely changed, and I love it for that much more than I did in its heyday. I also love Red Letter Media and their website. I hate the newsfeed format, and prefer to be able to seek out a site's entire contents at my own leisure rather than just scrolling endlessly in reverse chronological order.

Blogs occupy a middle ground between the classic 'table of contents' websites and the modern newsfeed era. The best-designed blogs offer both the standard reverse-chronological feed, and menus so you can find specific content in a more direct way. My favorite animation blogs are Anipages, The Ghibli Blog and Cartoon Research. All three have that well-organized hybrid format. It's also probably not a coincidence that they're all written by non-animators who view the medium in a different way, offering a refreshing different perspective.

A Quick Update

It's been a while since I wrote anything here but obligatory posts sharing my new cartoons. Time to blow off the dust, at least temporarily.

I've been working at ShadowMachine since I moved to LA in 2013, and I'm currently a director on Bojack Horseman (we're in the middle of making season 4). I'm dating an amazing woman I met shortly after moving here. I've been to Japan twice. I also got to visit Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, Orlando, New York and Austin, as well as returning home to Toronto whenever I can. I never used to travel much until I moved away. There are some good things in LA, but I still don't really like living here very much. Every day I resent that the city is designed for cars rather than people. I wish I knew more people outside of the animation industry here, but I don't do anything about that. On the whole I realize that LA isn't so bad, it's just that Toronto is really really good. I always thought liked it while I lived there, but had nothing to compare it to so I couldn't really tell if I'd prefer other places. Now that I've been elsewhere, Toronto wins.