📱 It's OK to be Connected

I grew up in a small town in Southeastern Quebec. City folks mock it as being the "redneck" part of the province. People over there attend Demolition Derbys on the weekends and ride moto-cross in sandpits. The big high school rivalry was farmers beating up hip-hop fans. There's nothing wrong with that... unless you're a teenage nerd like I was.

🤓 Why I left for the City and Never Looked Back

I'm being dramatic. I made durable friendships that last to this day. I was raised in a privileged environment where I could develop my talents and thrive.

Still. It's hard to shake off that feeling of being a misfit. I remember one job interview I did in a textile factory. I was talking about how much I loved being in a rock band and writing scenarios. The hiring manager rejected me because she felt I would be bored. To be fair, I was also puny at 16.

I can't drive a stick shift. I never hunted. I fixed my first leaking pipe when I was 28. I drink Pina Coladas and rosé; I can't stomach beer anymore. By all indications, I'm a wimp.

What happens when the "real world" does not feel as it should?

🌇 Why I Hated Céline Dion

Yet the city wasn't better. In a sense, it was worse. For a while in my teens, I hated Montreal. See, Montreal was the epicentre of our local francophone star system which controlled all TV stations. Nobody was more exposed than Céline Dion. You couldn't get to the convenience store without seeing her on every magazine cover. The Titanic song played in a loop for years.

Céline Dion became the symbol of the fake star system built by the gatekeepers of the mass media.

Don't fret for me. I made peace with Céline. I came to appreciate her importance for Québécois culture. My partner of the past 15 years is a fanatic. She wore me down.

The city remained the place for the "clique", the happy few who navel gazed their way to prime time.

🏠 The Internet Was A Refuge

I built my first website in 1999. It was a pro wrestling simulator where I was the "general manager" writing the "storylines". I grew the hobby into a column on what was in 2004 the biggest French-speaking pro wrestling website in the world.

I met dozens of people online, most of which I never saw in real life. Nevertheless, the people I met online during these 4-5 years shaped my path forward as much as real-world friends.

File-sharing websites allowed me to escape from Céline Dion. The Internet was where music that didn't meet the standards for mass consumption could exist. It was a cultural revelation.

This is not a novel story. Most millennial geeks probably share the same sentiments as I do.

Speaking of millennial geek...

😈 Where I Agree with Mark Zuckerberg

Since starting ppfosec, I criticized Meta the most. There's something rotten at its core which motivates its questionable ethics (just look at this $725M settlement for the Cambridge Analytics scandal that was just released).

I will keep hammering on the stupid headset obsession. I will point out the privacy flaws and salute the EU sanctions.

Because, at the end of the day, I love Facebook. Or rather, I want to love Facebook. And Instagram. I believe in its mission to "build communities" and "bring the world closer together".

The Internet is at its best when it fosters these communities. The "real world" of my teenage days angered me. The digital world soothed me.

🎭 My Love Letter to the Creator Economy

Let's look at other questionable business practices of Meta and Google: swallowing whole all advertising revenue from traditional news sites, adjusting creator's payouts obscurely, and arbitrarily modifying the discovery feed. Platforms let creators down.

Nowadays, people making art or any useful content online must go direct to the consumer. Aggregators such as social media platforms remain the privileged path for discovery, but they are no means in themselves.

Most privacy abuses we have seen in the past 20 years can be traced back to the decision we've made that everything online shall be "free". By not paying for the product, we've made ourselves into the product. This created a world where it is "normal" to receive anything between 2 and 5 fraudulent targeted SMS in a given week. We shrug off data scraping companies. A restaurant chain in Canada attempted to settle a class action lawsuit with coffee and doughnuts!

I am grateful we seem to have turned that corner.

Nobody questions being a Patreon anymore, or subscribing to an indie podcast for premium benefits. Instead of having Céline Dion blasted all over the radio, it seems every pocket of the population can find its niche.

There is no world in which I could listen to actual plays of role-playing games on television without an online direct-to-consumer approach. I have been part of various creator communities around table-top role-playing (think Dungeon and Dragons but somehow more nerdy). People share art and bond over their passion. This is healthy! The community belongs to the creator who sells premium content such as custom emojis. Discord does not collect user data for advertising us tooth and nail (its GDPR fine was dumbfoundingly about Discord not terminating voice chats on Windows when users press "X").

💒 I Missed a Friend's Wedding Because I'm Not on Facebook

This brings me back to my own practice. When I created this newsletter, I didn't put too much thought behind the content strategy. It's a newsletter, right? I read hours of tech news every week, let's just share my favourite ones!

I didn't think of you. To be precise, I didn't think about how I could use my knowledge and experience to make your life better. It took me a while to figure it out, and I'm not even sure I'm there yet.  

I got so much positive out of my online life during the past 23+ years that I feel it's unwise to look at it without nuance. I would love it if I could help you cultivate a healthy relationship with technology so you get as much out of this digital world as teenage and adult and parent me did.

I quit all social media and news in 2014 because of professional anxiety. I couldn't bear seeing my acquaintance get all this success. I blamed politicians' austerity measures, and that burned me out on politics. I went all in: I used a parental control website on my phone to block all social media and news. I modified my HOSTS file on my desktop computer to block all domains. I unfriended everybody except an inner circle. I sacrificed real-life friendships because I disliked how they behaved online.

Because of those measures, I missed a friend's wedding and countless other events.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Social media has many awful drawbacks:

• It's bad for your attention span
• It encourages radicalization
• Anonymity enables bullying
• It wrecks teenage girl's body image
• "Fear of Missing Out" is tied to addiction and depression

Yet, I'm all about knowledge and awareness. I think we can have our cake and eat it too.

And that's what my goal will be moving forward: I hope I can become that little spark of knowledge that helps you figure this complex world out. Maybe you'll stop scrolling one second, one day, and ask yourself, "what would PP say?" and maybe that'll be enough for you to acknowledge whatever emotion you've felt while scrolling. And next thing you know, you're more grounded in your emotions and feel better about your online habits.

🥰 From Cozy Gaming to Cozy Social and Cozy Workplace

Right before the lockdowns, I remember a heated debate I had with a co-worker at lunch over Animal Crossings, which was about to launch. I had never heard of it. "Wait, what do you mean there is no end to the game? You just go out there and wander around feeding plants?", I ranted. The other guy responded in an even more passionate diatribe: "Can we just have games that are pleasant? I'm sick of grinding for an abitrary high score! Why can't we lay back and relax?"

He was right.

Earlier it was The Sims. Nowadays it's Minecraft, Roblox, Animal Crossings, Valheim. What do these games share? Communities.

This article from the Verge explains the rise in popularity. Games were engineered to trigger a dopamine rush. This is what hooked kids, especially boys! It just kept snowballing according to that mainstream business model until the internet showed another way!  

We can have cozy games, cozy platforms, and cozy workplaces. Let's build them together.

📵 Warning: the Anti-FOMO Brigade is Out There

As a child of the early 2000s, I admit I have an anti-censorship bias. I don't ever want to come back to a fistful of initiates keeping control of what I see, read, and hear. No matter how I feel about Céline Dion these days.

I struggle to keep my cool whenever somebody calls out for a platform to be banished like US congresspeople are trying to do with TikTok. I am allergic to attempts to control individuals. With the treasure trove of data we share online, surveillance has never been this easy. I read 1984 when I was 16. It struck a nerve.

My point is: we must soldier on. We will feel nostalgic for this neutral and free Internet if it's gone.

There is data. There are real issues. Pontificates will call for harsh restrictions on online presence, especially minors.

They are right about the problem but wrong about the solution.

You are in control. You got this.

Don't let militants drag you down. The "anti-FOMO" will guilt-trip you for watching TikToks for an hour and shame you for posting travel pictures on Instagram. "You're making people miserable showing off your toned abs!" Like everything, the medium is the message: the intent is not wrong; what’s wrong is how it's carried out. Don't let zealots shame you over your online presence.

Find those communities. Engage them. Let them get closer. Stay sane online.

🎧 Quote of the Week