The Static Room

Your Name — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:45:28 -0500

DEVLOG_001 // SIGNAL PROJECT

STATUS: SUCCESS

DATE: 2026-06-02

BOOTING... > Signal Project Initialized > Objective: Learn Basic Electronics > Mission: Assemble FM Radio Kit > Threat Assessment: Moderate > Confidence Level: Low

Today I picked up a soldering iron for the first time.

The goal was simple: build a small FM radio from a beginner electronics kit.

The reality was somewhat more chaotic.

INITIAL CONDITIONS

I began with a pile of components, a PCB, and instructions that claimed to be beginner-friendly.

This was later determined to be misinformation.

Several sections of the documentation were incorrect. Component placement diagrams did not always match reality. At multiple points I found myself staring at the board and asking:ERROR: Instructions do not appear to be operating within known physical laws.

A consultation with Damon confirmed that I was not, in fact, losing my mind.

Documentation was wrong.

Operator sanity preserved.

FIELD REPORT

Learned skills acquired:

Component identification
PCB reading
Through-hole soldering
Basic troubleshooting
Not blindly trusting documentation
Asking questions before creating expensive problems

Unexpected challenge encountered:ENCOUNTER: Battery Compartment Threat Level: HIGH

The battery wiring repeatedly detached during installation.

The enclosure fought back.

Several attempts were required before successful integration.

Mechanical systems remain suspicious.

HUMAN FACTORS

Extended work session resulted in severe ergonomic penalties.WARNING: Back Integrity Reduced Mobility Debuff Applied Countermeasures: - Tylenol - Hot Shower

Future upgrades to workstation ergonomics are recommended before proceeding with additional hardware operations.

RESULTS

After approximately one hour of assembly, troubleshooting, and negotiations with the battery compartment:POWER ON... DISPLAY ACTIVE SPEAKER ACTIVE FM SIGNAL DETECTED STATUS: OPERATIONAL npx @11ty/elevent The radio works.

I built a functioning electronic device with my own hands.

UNEXPECTED BONUS EVENT

Upon observing the completed build, my kid immediately requested a soldering kit of their own and informed me that they thought it was awesome that I was learning something that scared me.

Achievement Unlocked:PARENTING.EXE STATUS: SUCCESS

We are now planning future electronics projects.

The contagion appears to be spreading.

NEXT OBJECTIVES

Complete Learn-to-Solder Path
Arduino Fundamentals
Raspberry Pi Pico Programming
Circuit Design Basics
Continue Signal Project Development

FINAL NOTES

Today was not about building a radio.

Today was proof that electronics are learnable.

The instructions were wrong.

The battery compartment was hostile.

My back filed a formal complaint.

The radio works anyway.LOG SAVED. SIGNAL PROJECT CONTINUES...

Signal the StaticSprite Devlog 002

Your Name — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:00:00 -0500

/ STATICSPRITE_DEVLOG // ENTRY 02

jacking into the matrix one line of code at a time. teaching myself python by building something that shouldn't exist: StaticSprite — a tamagotchi-vibed data pet that lives in a 3D printed shell and runs on pure attitude.

this is signal. it's an crt monitor-headed tentacle creature that will eventually become the personality core for a future companion robot. currently it's just pixel art and dreams, but soon it'll be alive in my pocket, judging me when i forget to feed it.

first time making pixel art. first time learning this type of coding language. definitely not the last time i'll question my life choices at 2am while debugging state machines.

the StaticSprite is part of The Static Room. Eventually this thing will have mini-games, neoPixel glow, and enough personality to be annoying.

here's signal in its varied expressions:

watch this space. the signal is coming.

The Static Room Build Log 01-04

Your Name — Mon, 11 May 2026 19:00:00 -0500

BOOT SEQUENCE INITIALIZED...

PROJECT: THE STATIC ROOM

STATUS: UNSTABLE

SIGNAL: RECOVERED

DAY 01 // THE ROOM EXISTS

Objective:

Build a personal webspace that feels alive.

Not polished.

Not corporate.

A weird room on the internet.

The first version of The Static Room started as glowing windows floating in darkness.

Started constructing:

homepage
about page
blog page
glitch styling
neon windows
VHS/static atmosphere

Immediate discoveries:

CSS is a haunted architecture system.

Every container secretly affects every smaller container.

Every fix births another goblin.

Still. The room flickered to life.

DAY 02 // THE GLITCH WARS

STATUS:

MOBILE HEADER FAILURE

The site title repeatedly overlapped the navigation bar on mobile.

Attempted fixes included:

moving nav positioning
changing header structure
flex layouts
separate nav containers
responsive CSS
increasingly feral troubleshooting

Important discovery:

Parent containers influence child layout recursively.

Translation:

Every box in CSS is cursed by the boxes around it.

Eventually stabilized mobile layout by:

separating header and nav structure
adjusting spacing directly
removing conflicting inherited behavior

Notable emotional state:

-throws things-

Notable breakthrough:

I actually understood what was wrong.

This was the first moment the project stopped feeling like:

copying tutorial code

and started feeling like:

real troubleshooting

DAY 03 // THE CURSED BLOG FEED

ATTEMPTING TUMBLR FEED INTEGRATION...

Initial goal: Embed Tumblr directly into the site.

Reality: Tumblr and browser security policies entered the chat carrying knives.

Encountered:

iframe failures
CSP violations
API refusals
feed parsing weirdness
CORS restrictions
browser security tantrums

Terminal log excerpt:

violates the following Content Security Policy directive

At one point the Tumblr feed produced:

{"error":"Network connection lost."}

Which honestly fit the aesthetic.

Eventually moved away from direct embedding.

Discovered a cleaner system:

feed.json

Instead of fighting Tumblr directly:

export content structure
display posts locally
keep control over layout

Major lesson learned:

Sometimes the correct solution is architectural.

Not another patch.

DAY 04 // THE RADIO SIGNAL

RECOVERED AUDIO FRAGMENTS

New objective: Create a looping synth radio player for the site.

Problem: Neocities free accounts do not support MP3 hosting.

Attempted solutions:

Itch.io hosting
direct browser playback
external hosting experiments

Eventually landed on:

catbox.moe

Uploaded tracks successfully.

Then entered:

THE AUDIO DEBUGGING ARC

Problems encountered:

player showing 0:00 / 0:00
random playback failure
autoplay blocking
source loading issues
invisible JS failures
malformed assumptions

Most devastating discovery:

was missing from the About page.

Hours of debugging. One missing line.

Classic.

Eventually achieved:

randomized starting track
looping playlist
functional audio player
track label updates
haunted synth station energy

Current transmission examples:

public-ACCESS.mp3

cant stop the signal.mp3

Psychic Narwhal Messiah.mp3

Wolves in the Static.mp3

The moment the looping player finally worked:

The Static Room stopped feeling like a webpage.

It started feeling like a place.

THE IMAGE CONTAINER INCIDENT

WARNING:

CSS LABYRINTH DETECTED

Attempted to create larger media/promo windows.

Instead discovered:

inherited layout behavior
invisible container constraints
nested grid systems
hidden assumptions in old window structures

Important realization:

Some windows were built for text widgets.

Not media panels.

Result:

Instead of endlessly fighting old layout logic:

deleted unstable windows
simplified homepage
planned cleaner future components

This was not failure. This was: recognizing technical debt early which is an actual development skill.

CURRENT SITE STATE

THE STATIC ROOM // ONLINE

Current homepage includes:

glowing neon windows
status tracker
about panel
looping synth transmission player
glitch effects
responsive mobile fixes
custom Tumblr/blog integration foundation

Current vibe achieved:

weird personal internet room

NOT:

clean modern template

Mission successful.

DEVELOPMENT LESSONS RECOVERED

LESSON 01

CSS inheritance is dark magic.

LESSON 02

Every bug feels impossible until the exact cause is found.

Then it looks obvious.

LESSON 03

Sometimes the best fix is rebuilding the structure.

Not patching the old one.

LESSON 04

Real web development is mostly debugging tiny goblins.

LESSON 05

Personal websites should feel personal.

FINAL STATUS

THE STATIC ROOM

STATUS: ACTIVE

SIGNAL STRENGTH: UNSTABLE BUT FUNCTIONAL

MOOD: SLIGHTLY FERAL

End log.

Tubi Feels Like the Back Room of a Horror VHS Store (And That’s Why It’s Perfect)

Your Name — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:00:00 -0500

Today, cinephiles and horror fans have their pick of streaming services. There’s the quintessential Shudder, the mainstream giants like Netflix and Hulu, and niche platforms like FoundTV that cater to specific subgenres. We’re spoiled for choice so much that it can be hard to choose which service to click on much less which movie.

I tell friends and fans of horror when the topic comes up that if you’re gonna choose one streaming service to watch horror on, go with Tubi. Long story short, it’s free, has a great selection across all subgenres, and it has that old school movie lover feel.

It’s Free Which Changes How You Watch

Being free, it changes how you watch movies. There’s no pressure to dig in and curate your watch list on there. If you don’t like something, stop watching and move on. A freedom to try things you might now enjoy, risking nothing but a little bit of time.

When you’re not paying per month with expectations attached, something shifts.

You become more willing to:

click on something you’ve never heard of
abandon a movie halfway through without guilt
watch three bizarre films in a row just to chase a feeling

Tubi encourages wandering.

And wandering is how you find the good stuff.

“But there’s ads” I hear the guy in the back whining. You know what, I pay for A few streaming services at the base tier and I get ads on those too. Would I love no ads, sure. Do I understand platforms need to make money and therefore gotta have revenue somehow in this necro-capitalist hellscape? Yup. So yea, I put up with asinine ads that the algorithm does not match up with me very well and move on just like I did in ye olden days of watching SciFi channel at night with its hella long ad blocks. Count it as nostalgia to keep from screaming.

Also, “free” doesn’t mean low quality. Tubi has plenty of recognizable titles, including:

Hellraiser (1987)
The Descent (2005)
Child’s Play (1988)
Hell House LLC (2015)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Spree (2020)
And many more

The Indie and Low-Budget Scene Actually Lives There

If you care about where horror is going, not just where it’s been, Tubi is essential.

It’s one of the few platforms where:

filmmakers without massive backing can still be seen
strange experimental ideas actually make it to an audience
found footage isn’t treated like a niche—it’s just… there, multiplying

This is where you find the films that feel like someone had an idea they couldn’t shake and just made it anyway.

Messy? Often.
Unpolished? Absolutely.
Alive? More than most studio horror.

Indie films on TUBI that I adore?
Frogman (2023)
Life of Belle (2023)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
Werewolves Within (2021)
Color Out of Space (2019)
Trollhunter (2010) (and yes there’s two André Øvredal movies on this list, embrace it)

It Doesn’t Flinch at the “Bad Stuff” (And That Matters)

Let’s be honest with each other.
Not all horror is good. But “bad” horror is part of the genre’s bloodstream.

It’s where:

tropes are born
risks are taken (and fail spectacularly)
strange little miracles occasionally happen

Tubi doesn’t hide that.

It lets the awkward, the ridiculous, and the deeply flawed sit right next to genuinely unsettling films. And sometimes you can’t tell which is which until it’s too late.
That unpredictability?
That’s horror.

Tubi collapses the hierarchy by shelving blockbusters alongside low budget oddities. And when that hierarchy collapses? You start to see horror for what it actually is:
A spectrum of unease, not a ladder of quality.

Horror movies on Tubi that are legitimately awful but a delight:
Puppetmaster (1989)
Final Girl (2015)
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
976-EVIL (1988)

“Tubi doesn’t ask you to have good taste. It asks you to be curious.”

Tubi Feels Like Digging Through a Haunted Video Store

Tubi doesn’t curate horror the way other platforms do.
It accumulates it.

Scrolling through Tubi feels less like browsing and more like excavation. You’re not being guided toward “the best” films—you’re sifting through everything, including:

regional oddities
microbudget nightmares
straight-to-video fever dreams
movies with cover art that goes harder than the film itself

And that’s the point.
Tubi doesn’t separate “serious horror,” “kids horror,” and “camp horror.”
I can binge Goosebumps, Tales from the Crypt cartoon series, and Courage the Cowardly Dog with my kid then flip over and watch all the R rated gore and horror I want that evening without changing the streaming service.

Horror isn’t just what’s polished and preserved.
It’s what spreads. What mutates. What lingers in strange corners.
Tubi is full of those corners.

Tubi is my favorite streaming service for horror fans.

Shudder is a library.
FoundTV is an archive.
Tubi is the woods behind your house. Full of unmarked paths. Strange noises. Something moving just out of sight. And you don’t need a subscription to step inside.

Open Tubi, scroll for a bit, and pick something you’ve never heard of.
That’s where the good stuff is.

A History of Analog Horror documentary review

Your Name — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:00:00 -0500

(This review was originally written under SmallTownCreepy in 2023)

As a fan of retro horror, a VHS collector, and someone who has already dived into analog horror before even knowing the name of it by becoming a fan of such stories as Blink, Five Nights at Freddy’s/Willy’s Wonderland, and Public Access TTRPG, when I saw someone suggest this documentary in the Public Access discord, I was intrigued and knew I needed to see it to understand the path I’d wandered down.

Just a heads up, I viewed this documentary as an outsider to the analog horror genre and review it as such. Analog horror super fans will likely have a very different opinion of this film.

(Watch the documentary here: https://youtu.be/-I_4ph-L19U?si=VW91Q0HNANfaYJkz )

An unprecedented unfiction documentary featuring ARG & Analog Horror legends such as Kris Straub (Local58), Nick Nocturne (Night Mind), Nexpo, Alex Kister (Mandela Catalogue), MISTER MANTICORE (Monument Mythos), Turkey Lenin III (CH/SS & Good Old Days), Wiktor Stribog (KrainaGrzybowTV), and Quarks & Rec (Minerva Alliance & Tapes from the Darkside). This feature-length documentary from director Alex Hera explores the complete history of the genre. Analog horror is one of the most popular and influential developments in internet horror in the past decade. To understand why it’s so successful, what the importance of this new genre is, and what impact it will have in the future, we need to explore its origins. It’s time to take a look back… into the History of Analog Horror.

You can watch the entire documentary free on youtube

5 Star Documentary

Alex Hera does an amazing job not only with conceptualizing this project, researching the hell out of it, and interviewing various creators within analog horror but by putting it together to feel like its something out of an analog horror story itself is perfection.
There were cut scenes where Hera’s narration while being filmed in a dark room, applying images and papers to a pin board with red string, and looking at a grainy computer screen that gave me major Night Vale vibes. These could have been scenes from a V/H/S/ horror short or a story in and of itself. Loved this editing and creative choice. I almost wish Hera had leaned into it further, made it creepier, but also reason that doing so might have taken away from the documentary itself…but still, It would have been cool.

The History of Analog Horror documentary follows the timeline of analog horror from back to the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast unknowingly creating the unfiction genre of horror to the hay day of Creepy Pasta to today with a speculation on what is to come with Millennium Horror and more. There are moments when the timeline is abandoned and the path strays into tangents but the string is never dropped and Hera brings us back to the timeline again, holding our hand as we maneuver through this uncanny landscape.

Despite these moments where we go down the rabbit hole, I never felt like there was a scene or time that was unnecessary. This documentary, though long, is tight. There’s no rambling or trivial moment…unlike this blog perhaps.

What I think a lot of viewers will enjoy from this documentary is a list of projects to go and check out – either because you, like me, hadn’t heard of them and they look awesome! OR because you are already eyeballs deep in the analog horror fandom and want to go back down memory lane and revisit the daddies of the genre.

What I Didn’t Love

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear I enjoyed this documentary and look forward to deep diving further into the projects discussed within it. But the fact that I hadn’t heard of many…most…of these projects prior leads me to my one irritation with the movie. There is a section in the documentary that comes up and then is talked about continuously from middle to end where the creators of these analog horror projects say that the genre is becoming over saturated and mainstream. I could not help but side-eye this a great deal.

I’m not saying that I am on the up and up when it comes to all things horror or all things online. In fact, when I was live tweeting my viewing of this documentary, I mentioned that when things were hot in the unfiction, creepy pasta, and beginnings of analog horror (the early 2000s and even into the 2010s) I didn’t have reliable internet. So I was not really present for the hay days of these genres or the birth of analog horror.

What irked me was the discussion among these creators as if the genre is over saturated and mainstream when…if it weren’t for some rando dropping this documentary on a discord discussion I wouldn’t even know the terms unfiction and analog horror (even though I had of course heard of certain projects such as The Mandela Catalogue and knew of Slenderman mostly because of the stabbing of Payton Leutner).

What these statements of over saturation and mainstream came across as was “that indie guy” attempting to sound cool because he was here first and anyone after him was just following a bandwagon. That something cool and underground became uncool because of popularity. However, its more likely the case of living in an echo chamber.
If you’re only around people and only talk to people who are aware of your subgenre and subculture, then yea its gonna seem like its mainstream. The thing is, even within the subculture of horror fans, this is barely a blip on the radar and I’m certain you will find MANY horror fans who have not heard of analog horror or, like me, have brushed by it, enjoyed it, but weren’t away it was a “thing.” And that’s not even going into the real mainstream of media and popularity.

Recommendation

Other than that bit of side-eye, this was an excellent documentary and I recommend it for those of you who, like me, have had a brush with analog horror and want more OR who are retro horror fans who are interested in what creators are doing with this aesthetic we already know and love.

If you enjoyed this and want to play around in the analog horror genre more, I highly recommend the ttrpgs by The Gauntlet.
Public Access is a game focused on adults returning to the small town of Deep Lake, New Mexico where they spent time as kids. There, they investigate the local tv station and public access channel TV Odyssey as well as other strange, uncanny, and horrific mysteries in the town.

Strawberry Gashes: How Making a Retro Horror Zine was More Artistically Satisfying than Trad Publishing

Your Name — Sun, 26 Jan 2025 18:00:00 -0600

I recently published a horror short story as a zine on itch.io Strawberry Gashes is a retro horror story about codependent friendship and flavored with cursed vhs tape, Riot Grrl punk music and zines, and irreverent 90s/early 2000s vibes (so pretty much my teen years). The best part, its a zine and that is what makes it perfect.

WTF is a Zine?

For those of you who don’t know what a zine is:
Zine (pronounced zeen like magazine) is a handmade self published book. Genres of zines range from personal stories (perzines) to fan art and commentary (fanzines) to rebellious, punk, queer, how-tos for dealing with the world at large. They can also be artistic expressions either visually or in written form, or, in this case, both.
Zines started back in the Harlem Renaissance when black writers couldn’t get published traditionally. They decided to take the publishing process into their own hands by making what they called “little magazines” to share essays, poetry, and more.
Later in the 80s and 90s queers and punks did the same thing. When traditional publishers and even print shops wouldn’t touch anything LGBTQ+ or anarchist/political, they made zines at home to get information and art out to their communities.
I share more about zines and how they should (and I think are) making a come back in my post about old school blogging and social media. You can read it here.
You can also get my mini-zine about what zines are and how to make one for free here.

Why This Story?

Let me back track and say that I didn’t set out to make Strawberry Gashes as a zine. While I was already making and interested in zines when I wrote it, my initially intention for this story was to traditionally publish it in an anthology. In fact, that was what inspired the story.
An anthology was calling for stories inspired by punk music. There was a lot of discussion about Green Day and Sex Pistols but my first instinct was to go to the 90s Riot Grrl movement. The song Strawberry Gashes by Jack Off Jill was on the Riot Grrl playlist I looked at and it immediately took me back. Just thinking of that song puts me back in 15 year old Dex’s body, laying on the floor of my best friend’s room, staring up at posters and listening to this song and others like it on repeat. It immediately gave me the inspiration for my story.

I poured teen me into Strawberry Gashes. How my friendships were mostly out of trauma bonds and so many were unhealthy to my own difficult relations with evangelical family. How turning to VHS tapes and art either saved me or gave me the comfortable dissociation I needed at the time to not kill myself.
My beta readers responded with how the story made them immediately think of 90/00s psychological horror. They felt instantly pulled back through time to the era of Goth (2002), Gypsy 83 (2001), Ginger Snaps (2000) and Girl, Interrupted (1999). While my story doesn’t follow similar paths as those movies, the vibes are there.

The thing is, Strawberry Gashes wasn’t accepted into the anthology. I was told it didn’t fit the other stories in the book, which I get. I’ve DNF’d anthologies because the stories felt all over the place or read some all the way through only to like one or two of the 15 in the book. The last thing I’d want is for my story to be in an anthology like that. So I didn’t take the rejection to heart, especially when my beta readers had such kind words to say about it. The rejection letter did say that they were planning a 2nd anthology and that I was welcome to resubmit it then.

So I had options. I could submit the story to another anthology or magazine. I could sit on it until the 2nd punk music anthology. Or I could self publish it in a personal collection of stories. I put the story in a file and worked on other projects for a while, figuring I would decide later what to do with it.

At the end of 2024, I started getting more into zine making. Its something I admired as a young teen and recently realized was still an ongoing sub culture. I made a few, mini zines and fan zines mostly, bought a few, and admired a ton out there. The best part about zine culture is it gets you thinking about the culture and systems of publication, art and art distribution, etc. I started thinking about zines as a way to play with my writing and get it in the hands of fellow weirdos.
That was when I picked Strawberry Gashes back up.

I played with how I wanted it to look. Created a background, clipped images that related to the story, and put it all together into what I hoped felt like an immersive art and story experience much like an illustrated book might be. The response I got from beta readers was exciting. They felt that the imagery elevated the story and the overall was much more effective than if the story had simply been printed in a book. That was when I realized that making a self-published, hand made zine wasn’t just to get words and art out there that others wouldn’t publish, that it could very well be better than traditional publishing!

I’m thrilled not only to offer Strawberry Gashes in this way but am contemplating other stories and ideas that might benefit from this style of creation and distribution. I look forward to sharing them with you on this journey.

Make Weird Art

Your Name — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 18:00:00 -0600

With the death of David Lynch, there has been an outpouring of love for the man and his work the last 2 days. Much of that outpouring has developed into a rallying cry of “Make Weird Art.” Lynch was known for being a “freak.” His movies detract from formula and have layers of meaning that he never would explain and endings that never seemed to wrap up the story in a neat bow, leaving the world to continue in the minds of the viewers. He was a big believer in the difference between art and entertainment, the latter made for money and the former made because the artist needs to do it.

His Death

Before I get into the main purpose of this post, I want to say that I am heartbroken by the news of Lynch’s death.

Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.
Lynch revealed in 2024 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema after a lifetime of smoking, and would likely not be able to leave his house to direct any longer. His family announced his death in a Facebook post, writing, “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’”
~The Vulture

As we mourn the loss of a great artist and kind person, lets remember his own words about death – “they just drop their physical body and we’ll all meet again”.

Make Weird Art – Your Way

What is meant by Make Weird Art, or what should be meant by that, is make weird art IN YOUR VOICE.

Lynch was a kid in the 50s. He hung out in Diners. He liked jukeboxes and formica counter tops and blue light and suits and things like that as well as being a follower of transcendental yoga.
that was his voice. We see a lot of that in his work in one way or another.
He shares that he dips into these wells of ideas and vibes of his childhood and his experiences.

So do that yourself
Look at the things you like and dip into those wells. Go fish in your wells of experience for ideas. You don’t have to try and go fishing in his wells, you have your own.
For me, that means a lot of imagery of 80s and 90s video rentals and cafes where girls with nose rings sell badly Xerox’d zines, Appalachian hollers, Military and HUD housing, autistic and queer characters, Pagan beliefs, and purple and green color palettes.
For you it could mean anything.

We’re gonna see a lot of folks who think Make Weird Art = Make another Twin Peaks or another Blue Velvet
That’s not what he would have wanted and that’s not what the world wants
We need you and your own unique flavor of weird, creeps. Lets see that!

You Better Mean It

If you’re calling for Weird Art, you better mean it.

Not long ago I saw a video about being autistic and the struggle when people tell you to “be yourself.” How, sure, they say that but they don’t mean it. We autists know they don’t mean it because when we are ourselves and we let that mask drop people respond in varying degrees of discomfort. The backlash for being ourselves can mean abandonment or abuse. It can be dangerous for us to be ourselves.
The same goes for weird art.

Weird Art doesn’t sell like main stream art does. Weird art doesn’t fit formulas or comfort levels. Weird art takes as long as it takes and doesn’t always sit in allotted time limits or budgets.
We can see this in Lynch’s weird art. His movies and shows didn’t come out as blockbuster hits. Critics complained about the lack of ending. People begged him to tell them what it meant because not having the meaning(s) explained bluntly and without speculation made them uncomfortable.

If you really want weird art – support weird artists.
This means supporting artists that don’t fit the mold. Support disabled artists. Support queer and trans artists. Support POC artists.
Supporting weird art doesn’t stop at buying the words of dead straight white men. Its easy to support weird art, or any art for that matter, when you’re not thinking about the person behind it and what they believe and where they spend their money if they have any at all.

If you want weird art, mean it.
Buy weird art.
Buy weird books.
Buy weird movies.
Buy weird music.
If you can’t afford it, support in free ways by sharing said weird art on social media. Review what you have seen/read/watched/heard. Get what you can from libraries. Write the artist and let them know what their work means to you.

Make Weird Art, Support Weird Art, and MEAN IT.

Blogging is Dead

Your Name — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 18:00:00 -0600

Undead Undead Undead...

This post was originally created in January 2025 and refers to timely events like Tiktok being threatened by the US government.

This past couple of weeks has been a horror show (in a bad way) for so many creatives, small businesses, political activists, and more as the United States handled an impending TikTok ban.* Hand in hand with that, people are called to show where they stand on fascism and plutocracy (oligarchy) by leaving Twitter/X and Meta apps (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp). This means that many are seeing how social media is slowly being monopolized by billionaire tech bros who are on the leash of a fascist government. Those same folks are starting to ask the important questions about social media use, where to migrate, and how we want to move forward with our internet usage. The answers are as diverse as the people asking them but I thought I would share my opinion.**

Without putting a tinfoil hat on too long, the situation with TikTok feels like a tech bro marketing scam.
**Said opinion is of a Millennial weirdo with a mild (read: not mild) obsession with retro media.

“Where you been? Some day we’ll meet, marry, and have cyber sex with the man of our dreams online.” – Screenshot of Strangeland (1998)

This morning, as I scrolled through Bluesky, I saw a post by Matt over at MGMasonCreative (RIP, I miss you Matt) [who I adore as the host of the Wednesday Horror Writers Chat on Bsky] talking about Blogging. Apparently part of the social media “what do we do?” conversation has been around reviving blogging. Like Mark, I also responded with “but blogging hasn’t gone anywhere, the readers have.”
Please go check out Matt’s post.

While The Static Room has only been around a short while, I’ve been a blogger on one site or another since 2006. I’ll save you the personal history lesson about my various sites by getting to the point that is, I, like Mark, have seem blogging go from an active community to what is now a split camp of old school bloggers (the minority) and would be influencers (the majority) and neither with much of an audience.

Used to be, blogs would be part of webrings, round ups, and a network of bloggers in the same genre. Posts would get comments or, sometimes, links to their blog posts in response to yours (same with vlogs – remember when YouTube used to prompt you to make a video response to something you were watching?).
Then blogs started to be dominated by folks who wanted to “blog for a living” and followed business guru advice to fill posts with affiliate links, listicles, fast posts with click bait titles, and more. Blogs in the mainstream transformed to what felt like the equivalent of channels surfing on tv and seeing nothing but ads.
At the same time, social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and later TikTok sprouted and drew people away from long form content.
This gave blogging the death knell…as far as many people were concerned.

But blogging was still around. Old school blogging, that is, long form content about life, opinions, etc within a genre/niche without a dominating focus on clickbait advertisement, remained alive after its hay day.
A year ago, I started seeing a post here and there from people around my age call for a return to such blogs. Articles and posts waxing nostalgic about LiveJournal, themed blog parties, and when people used to comment and converse rather than rapid fire like and scroll. Burn out from the online hustle and lack of real community on many sites made people miss this corner of the internet.

Not Just Blogging: Retro is Back, Baby

I want to say that I might be showing my age and perhaps viewing some parts of retro social tech (online or analog) through rose colored glasses (I am trying to check myself on this so I don’t end up being that Boomer on the front porch yelling at the kids in the street). That said, I am a big advocate not only to the return of old school blogging and vlogging but other forms of early internet socializing.

If we’re realizing the benefits to personal, long form media, lets also take a look at decentralized social media. Remember forums and chat rooms?
There were times when various sites, brands, blogs, and more had their own forum and chat box. I would hop between Gothic Beauty Magazine’s forum, various RP and fan fiction forums (I was a big text based RP’r in worlds inspired by Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser), witchcraft sites (WitchVox anyone?), and more. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) as well as chat rooms on other sites had a vast array of communities brought together by special interests just like social media hashtag communities today.

Beyond the internet, there were even older forms of socialization. Zines (independently and cheaply published booklets often associated with fandoms, punks, and more) were popular in the 90’s and early 2000’s. You could go into coffee shops, book stores, music stores, skate shops, and resale/thrift stores and fine a rack of these handmade booklets. Topics would range from sci-fi fandom to political activism. In the backs of them, you could send letters or self addressed envelopes and a dollar or two and the creator would put you on a mailing list to get future publications – the original blogging and newsletter.

I bring all of this up, not to wallow in nostalgia, but to point out two things:

None of these forms of media have gone anywhere. Sure, they’re less prominent and the users and creators have dwindled, but they are still out there.
Maybe we should consider a return, a revival, a mass exodus from billionaire owned clickbait and doom scrolling and go back to our digital and analog roots.

“You ever go online?” (quote not from this scene) Strangeland (1998)

RETVRN

Here’s the deal. Things are looking pretty bleak on Al Gore’s Internet (this is a joke btw).
Not only are techbro oligarchs teaming up with fascists to control the media and steer the minds of millions, but we also have the rise of AI generated images/text/sounds/videos.
By returning to the more dispersed, personalized, and community based media, we can shift the paradigm we are in. I really do believe that.

For my part, I am working on creating media and spaces to do just that. (Stick around for updates about Cyberdecks Community site, The Static Room chat room, and more) I am also making more zines this year. Last year I dipped my toe into zine making with a couple of fan zines. This year, I not only have fan zines but political, personal, art and social commentary and how-to zines planned. These and physical editions of my games will be available on a shop soon or you can get them digitally for cheap/free depending. I also plan on supporting others in the community doing the same (if you have a blog, forum, chat, zine, etc please comment below so I can check it out).

As for social media, it isn’t going away but I do hope that seeing what is going on will spur creatives to diversify their apps. (the following is no longer a recommendation, Moonbeam scammed their backers and Neptune never took off that I know of but that is part of the journey in backing small productions and I won't let it stop me from supporting other devs) Last year I backed and am excited to join a new streaming service called Moonbeam. It is a creator focused streaming site to rival Twitch. From what I understand and can explain is that it was born from unhappiness around how Twitch nickles and dimes it creatives while also not keeping them safe. I’m excited to see a new streaming platform and look forward to migrating there completely once it moves out of Alpha testing.
In response to TikTok’s shenanigans, a new app called Neptune is in the works. This one also claims to be creator focused and, from what I’ve seen, looks pretty damn good. I can’t wait to swap over when they launch.
I’m still looking for a good Instagram alternative. Bluesky is claiming to come out with one but I’m hesitant to have both my microblogging platform and my image sharing platform owned by the same company - a company I don’t trust anyways (there’s been transphobic issues and hints of Bsky going the way of Twitter once they monetize) but am choosing to stick with for now as the lesser evil.

Unprecedented Times

I know a return to old school internet isn’t a cure all. If it was, it would have worked the first time around. However, I do think that taking back media from monopolizing billionaires is a step in the right direction. Building communities and supporting writers, artists, and other creatives benefits us all (if we learned anything from Covid quarantine its that entertainment and art are necessary).

Whatever you do regarding your social media use and media content (creation or consumption), my hope is that you are mindful of who you support (and who might be harmed), that you are kind to others and yourself, and that we all do what we can, even in small ways, to make this world we live in a little better every day.

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