Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Rewilding the internet
As I was reading an article on rewilding the internet on Noema magazine I started thinking this website as a little wild and unkempt meadow in between all the neatly cut, boring and soulless lawns. The lawns don't sustain anything beyond the grass. But meadows, they bring in the buzz.
I have had concerns about centralisation of the internet for a while. Independent blogs and portfolios still exist, but lots of people have moved their writings and art to other people's platforms. Instead of making your own art site, you might think your Instagram works as the portfolio you need. And some small businesses only have Facebook pages. I don't know if anyone sees those pages, Facebook having been a hostile environment to small businesses for quite a while. Besides that, many artists and handcrafters only have their Etsy or other similar shops. People are just giving the control of their businesses to big tech corporations.
I've written about it before. How throwing all your eggs in these corporate baskets is a loosing concept. I was reminded of it, as an artist over at Bluesky was ruminating over how years of his work in progress stuff, which he used to post to Twitter, was now gone after he took off that mess. I really hope he has the photos still somewhere, but at least they aren't out there in public for people to view and learn from.
Now all those apps and websites are implementing AI and changing their terms to include rights to use your images and texts in training AI. Of course if someone wants to use the contents of this site to train their AI without my permission (let me be clear here, you aren't allowed to train any AI with my any of my content anywhere), I cannot really stop them. Sure, I could always take them to the court if I caught them. But still. Voluntarily giving my data and content to those power hungry asswipes feels icky, the least to say.
Sure I'm using Patreon. And yes, I publish my videos on YouTube. Those at least give me something in return of my work. But since Instagram and Facebook and Twitter have all proved to be pretty useless for me (conversions are crap over them), I can choose to take my data and content elsewhere.
There are no second or third party ads here on my site. Nor there are paywalls. What I promote is either mine or something I have carefully selected. Of course I need to fund all this somehow, which is where Patreon (and hopefully some day YouTube) come in. If you'd like to support my work, you can join as a free or paid member on Patreon. And I would very much appreciate it if you'd subscribe to my channel on YouTube.
If my hosting pulls the plug on my site, I can take it elsewhere. For that I'm currently using Grav, an open source flat file CMS. It's very portable and my content is safe and accessible for me offline too. A static site generator could work too. Considering that Grav uses Markdown for the content, it would allow me to move more easily elsewhere than some other content management systems, hosted website creators or blogging systems would. In case Grav would disappear or something.
I need to, of course, start doing better with this blog. I have been neglecting it way too often and way too much. I have thoughts on meditation and life and work and business and all sorts of things I could share with you. I've been feeling frustration with posting stuff here, feeling like nobody even cares. I'm trying to let go. Let go of expectations. Let go of thinking I need more than a handful of my people to make this worth it. Let go of the pressure to hustle and create with a pace of a robot.
While I cannot fix the whole internet, I can do my part by letting my own site be the wild and unkempt and weird meadow it is. There are things growing here you cannot find growing anywhere else. I hope you enjoy this meadow and keep exploring it. There's a lot to see and smell and hear and feel around here.
This is a reader supported blog without paywalls and advertisement. If you appreciate my work and want to help me rewild the internet, please consider becoming a free or paid patron today. I can't do this without the support of readers like you. So if you can to contribute financially, I would really appreciate your help.
