How are you staying socially connected during this time of physical distancing? Where are your favorite virtual hangouts? What is it about homemade bread that makes it irresistible to post online?

None of us were around during the great flu pandemic of 1918 so any comparisons we might make are through the lens of history. My dad tells me stories my grandma used to tell him about working as a young caregiver at the time.

They didn’t have hot running water so each day when she would come home her father would have a tub of freshly boiled soapy water from the well ready for her in the shed behind their house. She would change out of her nursing clothes and scrub down from head to foot before changing and being allowed to come into the house.

Apparently she made it through the pandemic without succumbing to the flu, otherwise, it’s doubtful I’d be here today to tell the story! It’s mind-boggling to consider how much change can happen in the span of a single lifetime, she started out in a world of horses and buggies long before the advent of radio and lived to witness the landing of the first man on the moon on her television screen, (although she went to her grave believing it was faked).

It’s hard to imagine what the world will be like for the twenty-somethings of today living through the corona-crisis seventy or eighty years from now. Life at the turn of the next century is bound to hold some surprises that are beyond our dreams today, but you can be sure that the stories from this time will still be told.

One thing is certainly different this time around, even though we’re maintaining some physical distance, we’ve got the word ‘media’ to go along with the ‘social’ part. They were definitely wearing masks back in 2018 and making an effort to stay six-feet (or more) apart, but they for sure weren’t posting cute cat videos or appetizing photos of fresh-baked loaves.

Zoom wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye yet although a close reading of the later Oz books by L. Frank Baum in the early 1900’s reveals that Princess Ozma had what he called a ‘Magic Mirror’ that looked and functioned exactly like a modern-day iPad equipped with FaceTime.

Having myself witnessed the invention and evolution of the internet and modern social media firsthand it seems relevant to share a few thoughts on where we are and where we came from. Once upon a time back in the early 90’s I had a clothing and music store on San Francisco’s Haight Street called Ameba. Alan, my business partner at the time had what was then a high-end computer, an IBM 286 PC running MS-DOS. (Fun fact: Did you know that DOS is an acronym for Dirty Operating System?)

Meanwhile, Rave Culture and the underground dance music scene were going strong and we were in the thick of it as a purveyor of psychedelic dancewear and DJ mixtapes. We were also the main source for party info with a vast flyer table and a phone hotline. Our store was often used as a ‘map point’ since promoters of illegal warehouse events preferred to keep the money far away from the venues.

The Zeitgeist of that period in history is unfathomable for those who weren’t immersed in it. I often meet folks who lived through those years totally unaware of what was happening on ‘underground’ dance floors around the world, from empty warehouses to beaches under the Full Moon. The entire concept of ‘underground’, as in ‘secret’ is obsolete nowadays with cell phones and social media exposing everything that happens in real-time.

The dawning of the digital age was welcomed with wonder and we were certain that ‘cyberculture’ was going to usher in an unprecedented era of advancement in human consciousness. ‘Positivity’ was the watchword and P.L.U.R. was the acronym for Peace, Love, Unity, & Respect. At the outset, the 90s were the 60s turned upside down, albeit with a different medicine chest and an electronic soundtrack.

I had access to an underground event space at the time, ‘Charter Oaks’ was a building owned by a friend’s father who lent us the keys and looked the other way. Aside from the interminable after-hours affairs we hosted every weekend, I held court on a lofty pseudo-intellectual get-together on the First Friday of each month called Future Forum.

At these ‘cyber salons’ a dozen or so folks from different disciplines would discuss the possibilities posed by the newly available and democratized digital technologies. The idea of ‘connected computers’ was brand new and everyone was excited about this new thing called ‘Mosaic’ which was the first browser that enabled access to what soon became known as the World Wide Web.

Well, the rest is history, so fast-forward a few years to Friendster, the first ‘social network’. Long before smartphones and the front-facing selfie-camera, there were early attempts at social media. I had a short-lived Friendster profile followed by great enthusiasm for Tribe, the Bay Area-centric network that seemed to attract almost everyone who attended Burning Man.

As ‘The Facebook’ was getting off the ground I had a close friend who was telling me about some people he knew with a startup that was morphing the ethos of the AOL chat rooms with a radical limitation of 140 characters to a post and calling them ‘tweets.’ Little did I know what a juggernaut Twitter would become.

Then Facebook adopted Twitter’s timeline model and debuted the bottomless page which has become the attention-hogging norm of the current social media milieu. Which brings us up to date and where I can share a few thoughts about some of the platforms I engage with, especially during this corona-crisis-conundrum.

Some networks purport to require your real name while others adhere to the anonymous aesthetic of the early internet. While it can be great to have your profile match your real-world identity so old friends on new employers can find you, (i.e. Facebook or LinkedIn), there are also merits to simply having a ‘handle’ (a term dredged up from the days of Citizens Band radio).

While some less-than-savory trolls use handles to hide behind for nefarious reasons, they can be very useful for ordinary folks, especially on a site like Reddit . It’s amazing how many people I mention Reddit to who have never heard of “the front page of the Internet” the 8th busiest site in the US. But Reddit isn’t what I would call a ‘social network’, it’s more of an ‘interest network’.

This is why ‘handles’ and ‘alt-accounts’ are such a valuable feature. Reddit consists of ‘subreddits’ which are basically bulletin boards organized around virtually any topic or interest imaginable, with an up/downvote system that lets the most engaging content rise to the top. Using the mobile app you are provided with a default list of basic topics when you sign up an account. You can keep the ones assigned, or remove them and add ones you search for and select. So for each alt-account you have, you can curate the type of content you see and engage with.

What this means is that you can toggle between accounts that are tailored to different collections of content to suit your mood. For example, let’s say you’re interested professionally in personal development and health and wellness, you like to relax looking at funny animals and cute wildlife, and your hobbies are knitting and ceramics. You can spend your time within each area of interest learning, posting, or conversing via the comments by switching between your various handles.

It’s somewhat ironic that our super-convenient and streamlined modern world take so much time and energy just to figure out how to use it! This time of the corona-crisis is an opportunity to slow down and evaluate what’s really serving you and bringing you joy, and what you can let go of for the sake of your well-being.

Keep your chin up and your eyes on your vision, one day these crazy times will all be in the rearview mirror so know that you are doing your best and that your voice and work matter in the world!

Stay safe and be well, take care and I’ll see you next Monday!

M+

Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine