Here I go again

Hey adventurers! Welcome to the Gamer’s Tavern, I’m Alex and I’ll be your writer for today. I bet if you followed this whole “Tavern-like” community you already heard this phrase, in a way or another.

This post won’t be an exception, of course. Ever since I started this new adventure with the brand “The Gamer’s Tavern” I missed greatly the old brand’s blog (Voodoo Digitale, aka digital voodoo). But first…

In the beginning a flicker of light happened

I grew up with IRC, with BBS, I remember the time Google was only a search engine with an innovative algorithm. We saw the light when Internet came into our houses, it was a warm and wholesome light, the kinda you wanna bask in it forever. Like cats (which I adore, btw) we grew lazy, basking in that light. Soon, it changed and became something weirder, something angrier, full of DOs and DON’Ts. Someone claimed it changed for our own good, it sure was reassuring hearing that and we believed it. And then there was darkness, that flicker of light disappeared.

Shouting in the dark

Fast forward to our days, the Internet changed more and more. Yes, back in the day of Voodoo Digitale I was so committed on the mainstream communication and discovery tools, because I didn’t know better:

• Twitter;
• Facebook;
• Instagram;
• Meta Business Suite;
• Google Analytics you name it, I used it. All of this to have a brittle chance of making my voice heard in the aforementioned darkness. Internet has always been about shouting in the dark, metaphorically speaking. What has changed is basically the answers you got from shouting your ideas.

In the beginning the answers were shouts from other people, there were wholesomeness all around. Now those answers aren’t being delivered anymore, the only thing you can hear in the darkness is your echo, and a distant voice that reminds you need to pay more for your shout to reach more people. We grew accustomed and frustrated. Then something changed again and the shouts themselves became ads only, we’d need to pay more and more to hear interesting shouts between ads. I’m not going to delve into the whole personal data harvesting, anyone can easily imagine it’s a dumpster fire, on which the modern society is planting the foundation for modern economy. Yikes.

Finding another cozy little light

Not knowing any better, when I started The Gamer’s Tavern I did the same exact mistakes of the previous brand. And as with Voodoo Digitale, I was starting to shout in the dark, but. But a light flickered once again, and that light was the Fediverse.

I joined Mastodon late 2022, and what I saw was the exact thing I didn’t remember I missed: people talking to people. People helping people, people being considerated regards other people, bloody hell, people gently arguing with other people. All of this, without ads. Now, I’m not goingto delve into the whole Fediverse thing either, what is really important talking about ActivityPub, Matrix, etc. is that another Internet is possible.

Another Internet where people have the power (love you Patti Smith) to host their own services and corporations haven’t almost any relevancy, unless given by those people. Yes, Google can knock at my door, but it’s my choice as a service administrator to let it in or not, and this is the power I mentioned.

But I digress, I’ve seen many springs in my life, you know. The Gamer’s Tavern has now its own Plume (federated blog) instance, to help other people shouting in the dark, precisely in the Fediverse darkness.

Everyone is welcome here, it’s a Tavern after all.

The recipe for this article

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp of salt;
• 1 tsp of honey;
• 1 tbsp of money;
• 1 cup of guts;
• 2 cup of hope

Directions

Put the salt and the honey into a bowl and let them amalgamate, stirring. Add hope and stir it some more. Check out your guts and add the money to them. Put it all together into the bowl and stir it. Let it set up for an hour and serve to everyone else, with love.