Walking home from my friend’s Christmas dinner I was thinking, of all things, about how tired people seem to be of social media and the web, and a lot of resignation to how eff-ed up it can feel. Many of the blogs I relished reading have just gone dark, un-updated in my RSS Reader.
And also remembered Jim Groom’s announcement of a record-fair inspired Domains conference this June in Oklahoma. That’s going to be great, but I think we should all band together, turn on our domains, our blog, bring others along into the fray– this ought to be the year to rise up and Reclaim the Web.
A 1960s sugar covered song popped into my head. And I am humming out loud, “I’m a Reclaimer”.
It was time to pull out the pen and paper, re-write the lyrics, grab some guitar tabs, and do an edtechcover.
This rough crowing was about 30 minutes of trying it out, and recorded in one take. There are goofs and off-key yelling.
And my lyrics:
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G D G I thought the web was only for status updates G D G Built by someone else but not by me. C G Trackers are out to sell me C G That's the way it seems. C G D (stop) Surveillance transmitting all of my feeds. G C G G C G Then I got a domain, now I'm a reclaimer G C G C Not a shred of me stored in their cloud C G (1) C (1) G (1) I'm in charge, oh I'm a reclaimer! F (1) (riff) Couldn't login there if I tried G D G I thought likes were more or less a shared thing, G D G Seems the more I gave the less I got. C G What's the use in tweetin'? C G All you get is spam. C G D (stop) When I needed insight I got ads. G C G G C G Then I got a domain, now I'm a reclaimer G C G C Not a shred of me stored in their cloud C G (1) C (1) G (1) I'm in charge, oh I'm a reclaimer! F (1) (riff) Couldn't login there if I tried C G Trackers are out to sell me C G That's the way it seemed. C G D (stop) Surveillance transmitting all of my feeds. G C G G C G Then I got a domain, now I'm a reclaimer G C G C Not a shred of me stored in their cloud C G (1) C (1) G (1) I'm in charge, oh I'm a reclaimer! F (1) (riff) Couldn't login there if I tried I'm a reclaimer, I'm a reclaimer yeah yeah |
Skip the resolutions about weight loss and running marathons, commit yourself to pry away (not completely, but reclaim your time, your data) from the shallow muck hole of social media, and get back to your blog, Jojo, get back to where you once belong (another cover to do).
“It’s too hard” does not wash at all. Look how lousy a musician I am, but I can do what I did in 2 hours, with the help of lyrics and chords shared on the internet, open source Audacity software, and a free account on SoundCloud.
Or start a new one. Or give a friend the gift of a domain from Reclaim Hosting (friends don;t let friends host with GoDaddy). Or move your site off of the upsell / lock down of WordPress.com — Reclaim will do the leg work for you.
Stop complaining about social media in social media. Get back to writing and sharing ideas, rather than link shoving.
Reclaim it All in 2017.
Start now.
Top / Featured Image: A mashup, a remix of the Monkees single. It’s totally a copyright if you believe in the limited scope of what that means. This use is not to sell (listen to how bad the music I made is), and is parody.
This is *beautiful*. The sermon at the end is a joy.
Fantastic. I deleted my self-hosted Mastodon instance last week after recognizing I wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to fix it (the thing hadn’t updated in weeks, still made for an interesting side-experiment). I’ve certainly had my moments of disaffection with social media this year. I love the idea of getting back to the blog in 2017. While the rest wait for the Next Big Branded Thing to fix it all we can keep making our small waves in the ocean on our own domain.
Sorry, I re-upped my domain name w/ GoDaddy already (tho’ inMotion hosts my site)… hey, I can understand the lyrics (so where couldn’t you log in if you tried, or is the point is you no longer desire to try?) so it’s all good!
Apologies not necessary. You have my condolences. Well I admit having one .it domain still registered at GoDaddy because of weird rules on transferring. it’s their web hosting which is horrible. One of my client’s site was there; they wanted to charge them for adding a forwarding email domain. That’s criminal. Since moving the site (to Reclaim), the hackles are taken off and the site runs much more quickly.
I care less where people host as much as *if* they do, so good on ya.
Yes the lyric rewrite there was a stretch for the original
I couldn't leave her if I tried— maybe it’s if you delete a social media account, truly delete it, you cannot log in if you tried??Thanks for listening
We’ll, it is always a nice time to hear my Still True Friend Alan @cogdog doing a singing song about True Friends and the web.
Plus, it was like when he visited at The Monkey House during Magic Camp Macguffin back at the lake.
It would be a nice project if all of the True Friends of me and #ds106 each made their own Hit Record for UNCLE @JimGroom’s record label hosting company and if @JohnJonston made a virtual juke box of it to play them like he did for the GIFs on a TV.
Plus, everybody needs to #Reclaim2017 after such a Mean Word that 2016 was.
Way to rock the web!
Kevin
Big Fan….Big Fan….Big Fan…great inspiration thank you Alan. Responding also to Tina’s call to action. https://soundcloud.com/viv-rolfe/reclaim-your-domain-fox-trot