Say by Mail

Is it time to go social with a pen, paper, envelope and stamp? Join me on the GROGVINE.

I found myself being hooked by one of those YouTube daisy-chain algorithms that took hold of my attention for an hour that I will never get back.

I discovered a new (to me) concept of the ‘Common Place Book’. I watched in awe as a parade of enthusiasts thrilled me with stationery, I’m already a soft-touch, advising me on the best paper to use to avoid bleed-through and feathering. It is a concept that has apparently been revived from antiquity, creating a personal space to capture quotations and a personal log of interesting thoughts and ideas. As I was taken from film to film in breathless excitement, it dawned upon me: a notebook, they are talking about a note book.

The enthusiasts who presented the vlogs were die-hard digital natives who have found the act of keeping a notebook as the ultimate form of self-expression and resistance against the attention economy.

A notebook. I have always kept a notebook by my side. I’ve adopted various methods over the years of capturing ideas from magazines, the radio, recommendations from friends as well as being a log of things I need to do, and done. If this is to be my “Common Place Book”, then so be it. I am ‘on trend’.

I have some sympathy for the yearning to return to the physical activity of taking notes. I have always enjoyed the morning review of what I did yesterday and thinking about what I need to do today and setting it out as a series of bullet points. I follow the mantra “projects never get done, you can only do the very next action” and that forms my daily log: these are the things I need to do, defer, delegate or dump today. The act of writing them down is a daily check-point: slowing me down, taking me away from the screen and focusing on action. I can feel another project coming on.

THE TWEET DILEMMA

I’ve been considering extending this act of physically writing. What if I started writing letters as an alternative to social media?

Like many others, I have been reconsidering my relationship with Twitter. It was inevitable in the cycle of these things that the format would be disrupted. The original concept of a microblogging site was very appealing as it suited my laconic style. The ephemeral nature of it made it possible to make pithy remarks about nothing very much. Through twitter I made friendships. Alan @dailydwarf and Big Jack Brass predated the arrival of the podcast, they encouraged me along the way and became contributors when it finally appeared. The community that developed around the podcast coalesced around Twitter and it was through direct messaging that early online games and ultimately GROGMEET was organised.

It was never going to last. Eventually the need to regulate or monetise the platform would distort what made the format work. The new model of private ownership, by a CEO that fails to appreciate what he has actually bought, is causing it to fall down from the foundations to the roof-tops. He thought he had bought a dominating, global media-platform, when it was really a network of millions of tiny villages who were self-sufficient, thank you very much. The mass exodus commenced in Autumn last year as the new developments were implemented, before being abruptly rowed backwards. It’s a cycle that has continued ever since to the create miasma of strangeness that has inflicted the Twitter timeline daily.

I’m reluctant to leave. It feels to me like a pub that has been taken over by a knob-head landlord who has installed a pool table for his mates, opened a VIP section where he chats with his mates, very, very loudly. I’m content to sit in the corner with my earphones on, sipping a pint, reading a book, waiting for my mates to turn up.

There are alternatives. There always were. I can’t get to grips with the clunky nature of Mastodon, Facebook puts everyone I know in the same room as my mum, Substack Notes is like a college library (shhhhhh), mewe was abandoned as it was spammed by women with no vests on and discord is like an uncontrolled firehose of content, learning how to become a forum in baby-steps.

A new platform will emerge, but in the meantime I believe its time to get more physical.

PEN PAL CLUB

There’s nothing more satisfying that getting something through the mail. The gentle thud on the mat, the opening of the package and the revelation of the contents, the whole experience is hard-wired to give pleasure. During pandemic period I was ordering stuff to get the endorphin hit to compensate for the loss of connection with others. By the end of the week, neighbours thought that the house was a crack den, it was receiving so many deliveries. The artificial feeling of connection. Opening another parcel containing ten pens to put on the pile with the others.

Twitter rewards recognition with ‘likes’, it used to be ‘favourites’, to replicate that connection. It’s life-affirming pat on the back to ensure you stay around to scroll through a load of people getting angry about things.

How about creating a gaming circle that exchanges ideas? Something like the APAs that were the life-blood developing the hobby prior to the arrival of online news-groups in the 90s. It should be possible to circulate a note-book, rather, a Common Place Book, between members for them to update a page at a time before moving it on after a couple of weeks. It will build as a collection of collective ideas, inspiration and usable content, created by Pen Pals, for each other.

Of course, there is a risk of people feeling precious about their page. There is an anxiety about contributing to these types of project as each person has the desire to improve upon the previous contribution. I hope that participants can relax and feel liberated to include scrappy content as well as carefully developed contributions. This activity should be enjoyable, not an horrendous chore.

Another project launch. The GROGVINE, let me know if you want to sign up and together we can create a common place.