Louie Mantia has the right idea about the web

I haven’t generally agreed with Louie Mantia.

I’ve never met him in person, and I honestly don’t even know if we’ve interacted on the internet. He always seemed just a little bit too opinionated. A little too closed off to hearing from people who disagreed with him. But you know what, I’m coming around to the idea that maybe he’s the one who has it figured out.

Let me back up… in the wake of the whole “Twitter thing”, a lot of people (myself included) have found ourselves asking if we should continue participating on Twitter. Some are doing so to take a moral stand. Others are wondering if Twitter is the kind of place that brings out the best in us, or even simply whether it’s good for our mental health. I’m increasingly feeling like it’s not.

So that brings me to what Louie wrote in the first post on his new blog back in November:

And in 2004, I finally made my own website with my own domain name. That felt like a big step up. Now I had my own space that I controlled. I could do whatever I wanted here. […]

I got to be my authentic self.

That really resonates with me. I don’t want to stress about posting something because I’m worried about who’s going to misconstrue a point that I hastily made (or condensed because of a character limit). I’m not interested in chasing the little dopamine hits when a few people tap the like button. I just want to be me.

Again, Louie:

It didn’t used to be like this. The web used to be a collection of independently-operated sites that we all individually controlled.

So for real this time… 2023 is the year of going back to the open web. This site is unapologetically me.