#fashernista — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #fashernista, aggregated by home.social.
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#fashernista describes a person in progressive or radical spaces who prioritises the appearance and aesthetic of activism — the right look, language, and social positioning - over the unglamorous, difficult work of actually building lasting structural change.
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Rebuilding Journalism as Commons (not a product)
https://hamishcampbell.com/news-culture-on-the-fediverse/ It should be obvious that we need a path back to good journalism - journalism that sheds light on facts, connects the dots, and lets people trace those dots back to sources. This is what allows us to share, question, and discuss within our own trusted communities, and then spread that knowledge outward through federation, always linking back to the source. Right now, the #mainstreaming path is broken. It’s sometimes hard for people […]https://hamishcampbell.com/rebuilding-journalism-as-commons-not-a-product/
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Policy churn, selective memory, and the mess on repeat
There’s a familiar pattern in foreign policy debates: outrage at the current regime, amnesia about how it got there. Yes, the current government of #Iran is repressive. It crushes dissent, restricts freedoms, and enforces authoritarian rule. None of that needs soft-pedalling, but if we’re at all serious about understanding the world - rather than just reacting to #fashernista headlines - we also have to look at how situation came to be. In 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister […]https://hamishcampbell.com/policy-churn-selective-memory-and-the-mess-on-repeat/
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This message is a shovel
Ten years ago - and honestly long before that - there were endless conversations on #failbook about how useful it was for campaigning. The dominant view back then was simple: it’s just cat memes, it's just tooling, it isn’t political so we can use it harmlessly. Before Snowden, this wasn’t a fringe view - it was probably a 90% consensus, especially among activists, and #fashionista tech communities. I’m not pointing fingers here, as this was normal. Many of us - including friends and […] -
This message is a shovel
Ten years ago - and honestly long before that - there were endless conversations on #failbook about how useful it was for campaigning. The dominant view back then was simple: it’s just cat memes, it's just tooling, it isn’t political so we can use it harmlessly. Before Snowden, this wasn’t a fringe view - it was probably a 90% consensus, especially among activists, and #fashionista tech communities. I’m not pointing fingers here, as this was normal. Many of us - including friends and […] -
This message is a shovel
Ten years ago - and honestly long before that - there were endless conversations on #failbook about how useful it was for campaigning. The dominant view back then was simple: it’s just cat memes, it's just tooling, it isn’t political so we can use it harmlessly. Before Snowden, this wasn’t a fringe view - it was probably a 90% consensus, especially among activists, and #fashionista tech communities. I’m not pointing fingers here, as this was normal. Many of us - including friends and […] -
This message is a shovel
Ten years ago - and honestly long before that - there were endless conversations on #failbook about how useful it was for campaigning. The dominant view back then was simple: it’s just cat memes, it's just tooling, it isn’t political so we can use it harmlessly. Before Snowden, this wasn’t a fringe view - it was probably a 90% consensus, especially among activists, and #fashionista tech communities. I’m not pointing fingers here, as this was normal. Many of us - including friends and […] -
This message is a shovel
Ten years ago - and honestly long before that - there were endless conversations on #failbook about how useful it was for campaigning. The dominant view back then was simple: it’s just cat memes, it's just tooling, it isn’t political so we can use it harmlessly. Before Snowden, this wasn’t a fringe view - it was probably a 90% consensus, especially among activists, and #fashionista tech communities. I’m not pointing fingers here, as this was normal. Many of us - including friends and […] -
The uncomfortable path
The individual, their freedom, and their capacity for reason are products of social relationships, not independent origins. Society is not built from isolated individuals; individuals arise from shared culture, history, and collective life. As society grows richer and more humane, individuals gain the conditions needed for deeper development and freedom emerges from this shared foundation. What’s really at stake is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the […] -
We use hashtags as scaffolding for the needed social truth, not as slogans, but as scaffolding, lightweight markers that point to recurring structural issues: #geekproblem #fashernista #dotcons #blocking are not insults. They are shorthand for patterns that otherwise take pages to explain. But, without shared context, they are still easily misread as personal attacks. Again we face #blocking.
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From personal mess to shared paths, #OMN in the post-truth world
Consensus matters - but it’s so hard - collective projects, media, activism and infrastructure require a minimum level of agreement about what the problem is. Not total agreement, but enough shared reality to coordinate sustainable action. Without some form of shared external social truth, progressive projects do not move at all, this is not always because people are malicious, but more often because they are no longer standing on any shared ground. This mess, is a problem, as it means […]https://hamishcampbell.com/from-personal-mess-to-shared-paths-omn-in-the-post-truth-world/
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We fucked up… and that matters because we still have agency
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: we fucked up the last 20 years of #openweb tech. Not “they” fucked it up. Not only #BigTech, not only venture capital, not only governments and surveillance states. We did, especially those of us who were closest to the tools, the protocols, the decisions - the geeks, developers, architects, and maintainers who shaped how this stuff actually worked in practice. That matters, because it means we still have direct power over what happens next. […]https://hamishcampbell.com/we-fucked-up-and-that-matters-because-we-still-have-agency/
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Progressive Mainstreaming
Most progressive #mainstreaming isn’t about ending the #deathcult - it’s about making its worship feel more fair, more inclusive, more polite. There is some real everyday value in this. Fewer people get crushed immediately, some suffering is reduced, that matters. But let’s be honest about what it does not do, it does not get people off their knees to challenge the altar to stop the sacrifice. It rearranges the seating in the temple, feeding the deeper problem, obedience. Progressive […] -
Progressive Mainstreaming
Most progressive #mainstreaming isn’t about ending the #deathcult - it’s about making its worship feel more fair, more inclusive, more polite. There is some real everyday value in this. Fewer people get crushed immediately, some suffering is reduced, that matters. But let’s be honest about what it does not do, it does not get people off their knees to challenge the altar to stop the sacrifice. It rearranges the seating in the temple, feeding the deeper problem, obedience. Progressive […] -
Progressive Mainstreaming
Most progressive #mainstreaming isn’t about ending the #deathcult - it’s about making its worship feel more fair, more inclusive, more polite. There is some real everyday value in this. Fewer people get crushed immediately, some suffering is reduced, that matters. But let’s be honest about what it does not do, it does not get people off their knees to challenge the altar to stop the sacrifice. It rearranges the seating in the temple, feeding the deeper problem, obedience. Progressive […] -
Progressive Mainstreaming
Most progressive #mainstreaming isn’t about ending the #deathcult - it’s about making its worship feel more fair, more inclusive, more polite. There is some real everyday value in this. Fewer people get crushed immediately, some suffering is reduced, that matters. But let’s be honest about what it does not do, it does not get people off their knees to challenge the altar to stop the sacrifice. It rearranges the seating in the temple, feeding the deeper problem, obedience. Progressive […] -
Building, what comes next?
#mainstreaming people are wilfully blind and alt people tend to be pessimistic, it's a problem. Historically, real social change doesn’t arrive by waiting for collapse. It arrives because people are active, they build alternatives in advance, strong enough to bridge the mess when existing systems fail and lose legitimacy. This isn’t theory. It’s how change has always happened. If you are interested in a better outcome, we need to remember, build first, collapse later is the lesson that […] -
Normal is walking around in a toxic story and calling this common sense
To step away from the mess you have to recognise the mess. Forty years of hard indoctrination doesn’t just fade away. It has to be dug up, held in our hands, recognised for what it is, and composted. If we don’t do this, we have no hope - none - of moving away from the accelerating mess that’s already killing millions and is on track to kill billions. Hobbes’ “nasty, brutish and short” isn’t a warning any more; it’s a weather report. Mainstream thinking feels normal because […] -
Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p
Let's look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use. This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed […]https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-omn-works-with-activitypub-and-why-we-need-a-bridge-to-p2p/
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Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p
Let's look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use. This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed […]https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-omn-works-with-activitypub-and-why-we-need-a-bridge-to-p2p/
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Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p
Let's look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use. This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed […]https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-omn-works-with-activitypub-and-why-we-need-a-bridge-to-p2p/
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Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p
Let's look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use. This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed […]https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-omn-works-with-activitypub-and-why-we-need-a-bridge-to-p2p/
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Why the #OMN works with #ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to #p2p
Let's look at this. #ActivityPub is not a product. It’s not even really a “protocol” in the narrow, rigid sense that vertical tech likes to imagine. ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the #openweb. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use. This is why the #OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed […]https://hamishcampbell.com/why-the-omn-works-with-activitypub-and-why-we-need-a-bridge-to-p2p/
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The use of #hashtags is a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. Think about neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista), promoting the ideals of the open web (#openweb) against the for-profit internet (#closedweb #dotcons). Serendipity and #Hashtags https://hamishcampbell.com/serendipity-and-hashtags/
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The use of #hashtags is a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. Think about neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista), promoting the ideals of the open web (#openweb) against the for-profit internet (#closedweb #dotcons). Serendipity and #Hashtags https://hamishcampbell.com/serendipity-and-hashtags/
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At best, the old #mainstreaming is about equality in worshipping the #deathcult
The old #mainstreaming was only in a limited way about freedom, we now need to focus on what it was about, equality in obedience. Equality in our blinded worship of the #deathcult: growth, consumption, competition, endless mess on a dying planet. That’s why #fashernista liberal progressivism is always a dead end problem, it plays radical, says radical, but composts nothing. At best, it sells rebellion as a lifestyle. It’s equality inside the system, not about freedom from it. We’ve […] -
The old #mainstreaming is about building equality in our worship of the #deatcult. This is why #fashernista liberal progressivism
is always a problem to compos #KISSWe need to focus on real change and challenge. What does this look like to you?
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#Nostr is a classic “me-too” project caught in the #geekproblem loop. It won’t move forward until it learns to value community as core infrastructure.
#Bluesky, meanwhile, is already drifting into the hands of VC-funded #fluffy elitists who turn every commons into a brand. It’s a likely dead-end for real change or challenge — which is exactly why the #mainstreaming, #blocking, #NGO, and #fashernista crowds flock to it.
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A Tolkien view of #OMN
A central thesis of Tolkien’s books is that evil provides the means of its own defeat. Sauron forged the One Ring that destroyed him. Shelob impaled herself on Sam’s blade. Smaug exposed his belly to Bilbo and revealed the weak point that brought him down. Tolkien’s world is full of this pattern: the seed of destruction lies buried inside the will to dominate. Power over others always carries its own undoing. But there’s a second truth, less often spoken. Good must still act. The […]https://hamishcampbell.com/a-tolkien-view-of-the-omn-project/
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The #fashernista cycle feeds on attention, novelty, and the absence of grounding. The antidote is the opposite: trust, continuity, and community memory.
Stay messy. Stay grounded. Stay real.
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The #fashernista crew take and dispoal anything that starts to grow in the alt.
That’s the pattern: spot the spark, capture it, smooth the edges, and sell it back as lifestyle.They move fast - faster than we do - and by the time you notice, what was radical has been turned into content, branding, and funding portfolios.
If you’re working on something that matters, an alt tech project, a grassroots network, a commons. Mediation before they move in,
defend your work, your world, and your dreams before they’re commodified into polite irrelevance.Because make no mistake, it’s happening to something you care about right now.
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Don’t try to convince them in the abstract. Show them. If a #fashernista sees a space where the shiny stuff grows on top of real soil, they’ll drift toward it. If a #geekproblem sees a tool that’s simple enough to use but still respects their itch for precision, they’ll tinker. The #mainstreamers won’t join until it looks inevitable, but working prototypes shift the gravity.
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The #OMN is a simple project
It can be hard explane this, as people make the needed change complex, it is not, yes, it's messy and the are no simple answers. So a first step is composting the #techshit: Raw waste → The constant flood of mainstreaming, broken promises of #dotcons, bad-faith #NGO capture, shallow “innovation theatre.” This is the smelly mess we are swimming in. Shovel work → Activists and communities don’t just sit in the mess. We work to turn it over, exposing the rot, adding oxygen. This is […] -
Building Alt/Grassroots Media Networks to Challenge and Widen Traditional Media
The current ecosystem of alternative and grassroots media is too narrow in its imagination of what media could, and should, be. There’s a persistent naivety or, in some cases, a self-serving dishonesty. Many of the most “successful” progressive media groups continue to mimic #traditionalmedia without understanding, or addressing, the fact that they do not control their distribution. In effect, they’re renting space in someone else’s empire.
This is not just a mistake. It’s the […]
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Talking about the mess we’re in
We’re living in an age of permanent crisis, there’s no going back to “normal.” Stop waiting for it. Let’s just STOP worshipping the #deathcult as a first step away from this mess. The trap we’re in, neoliberalism, or the #deathcult, isn’t optional. It’s systemic. You don’t get to opt out unless you’re rich enough to buy an island… and even then, it’s a fantasy.
But metaphors have value. #deathcult is a metaphor, yes, and a sharp, useful one. It’s a name for the […]
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That’s the filter we need to apply — especially as we face burnout, co-option, and the churn of #fashernista tech that solves nothing. Grassroots Radical Media: A #4opens Path https://hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-radical-media-a-4opens-path/
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That’s the filter we need to apply — especially as we face burnout, co-option, and the churn of #fashernista tech that solves nothing. Grassroots Radical Media: A #4opens Path hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-r...
Grassroots Radical Media: A #4... -
That’s the filter we need to apply — especially as we face burnout, co-option, and the churn of #fashernista tech that solves nothing. Grassroots Radical Media: A #4opens Path https://hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-radical-media-a-4opens-path/
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Why most radical tech is pointless, and why #indymediaback isn’t
Almost everything built in today’s alt-radical tech scene is, bluntly, pointless. Despite good intentions, most of it ends up feeding the endless cycle of #fashernista churn, flashy new platforms, bleeding-edge protocols, or encrypted communication tools nobody uses, built by isolated teams disconnected from real-world needs or history. This is the #geekproblem: a culture where novelty is fetishized, and social usefulness is an afterthought, if it appears at all.
Examples:
Secure […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/why-most-radical-tech-is-pointless-and-why-indymediaback-isnt/
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NGIFORUM2025 is starting to timidly touch sense
DRAFT
It’s good to see events like #NGIFORUM2025. The #Fediverse and the wider #openweb reboot are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, we do need to support them. BUT we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.
Too often, they are co-opted by #NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/ngiforum2025-is-starting-to-timidly-touch-sense/
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NGIFORUM2025 is starting to timidly touch sense
DRAFT
It’s good to see events like #NGIFORUM2025. The #Fediverse and the wider #openweb reboot are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, we do need to support them. BUT we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.
Too often, they are co-opted by #NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/ngiforum2025-is-starting-to-timidly-touch-sense/
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NGIFORUM2025 is starting to timidly touch sense
DRAFT
It’s good to see events like #NGIFORUM2025. The #Fediverse and the wider #openweb reboot are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, we do need to support them. BUT we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.
Too often, they are co-opted by #NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/ngiforum2025-is-starting-to-timidly-touch-sense/
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NGIFORUM2025 is starting to timidly touch sense
DRAFT
It’s good to see events like #NGIFORUM2025. The #Fediverse and the wider #openweb reboot are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, we do need to support them. BUT we also need to speak honestly, as these spaces are not healthy by default.
Too often, they are co-opted by #NGO and institutional actors who bring with them a dangerous kind of “common sense”, what I’ve long described as the parasite class. We see this […]
https://hamishcampbell.com/ngiforum2025-is-starting-to-timidly-touch-sense/
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@witchescauldron @NGICommons @moniquecalisti @cnrs @OpenForumEurope @openfuture @linuxfoundation @ngi
This needs https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=activism+tech into these
#NGIFORUM events and not as tokenistic #fashernista crap as it happens too often now. What we don't need is more #techshit to compost #KISS -
Composting the#techshit funding
Not surprised. This is probably the 10th time we've applied to the #NLnet / #NGI fund over the years. Just heard back: our proposals for #OGB (Open Governance Body), #indymediaback, and #MakeingHistory were not selected - again. “We are very sorry that we cannot offer you support for your good efforts.” Sure, I, appreciate the polite brush-off again. But after so many rejections for solid, urgently needed tech projects that actually fit the funding goals, it's time to name what's […] -
In the #openweb and #Fediverse spaces, it's worth remembering: Many people only value things once they’re validated by #mainstreaming sources. This is narrow, blinded behaviour — the kind that keeps the #deathcult fed.
If you only see value through the lens of #dotcons algorithms, you’re missing 90% of what actually matters.
A lot of the “famous” people in #mainstreaming — even on alt spaces — are assholes. Not because fame makes you bad, but because climbing the algorithm's ladder requires selfishness, ego, and conformity.
On alt platforms, sure, we have "our" assholes, that's life. But our assholes can be challenged, mediated, and composted into something better. On the #mainstreaming side? They're more shit on the corporate pile.
Please, don't bow down to them. Stay critical. Stay rooted. Keep your shovel handy.
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In tech, the last 20 years have been a mess of #fashernista trends and the ongoing #geekproblem, a compost heap of broken promises and abandoned projects. It's obvious if you lift the lid and really look. The glossy hype fades fast, the rot underneath remains.
Much of what we call "innovation" ended up as #techshit - rushed, bloated, short-sighted code that needs serious composting if we’re going to grow anything real. #Openweb dreams have been buried under a #dotcons landfill.
The real challenge now isn’t just pointing at the pile (fun as that can be), it's handing the next generation proper shovels - real tools, real critical thinking, real spaces for building rooted, resilient, open tech.
A hopeful note: some #fashernistas are starting to apologize and acknowledge the mess. That's good compost material too. Let's keep composting. Let's keep planting.