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Author: Gary West

  • Likes, Kids and the Rest of (Online) Life

    Likes, Kids and the Rest of (Online) Life

    Somewhere between MySpace and fatherhood, the algorithm showed up.

    I belong to the generation of internet and social media veterans: dial-up internet in 1995, StudiVZ, ICQ, MySpace, eventually Facebook. Never Twitter, awkwardly Instagram, and even a brief stop at Google Plus. Not as an early adopter or trendsetter—more of a follower, really—but at least never the last idiot to show up.

    And honestly, I enjoyed most of those journeys: building communities organically, making connections, rediscovering old friends and meeting new ones.

    Push The Feeling On

    But whenever I tried to promote ideas or projects organically, it was frustrating.

    Today I realize I behaved like I did at the local village disco back in the early ’90s: always driving to the same party with the same buddies to meet the same crowd and have a bit of pointless fun. And that worked reasonably well on social media too (by the way, what the fuck happened to Facebook? 😂) — just not when it came to becoming an overnight viral success.

    Connected

    As for how it could work better, ChatGPT and Claude are never short on professional advice. And just like that, I feel the old reflex kicking in again: the temptation to throw myself (semi-professionally) into the pull of the social media attention machine.

    But I know how exhausting that can be. How it can slowly change your personality. And how much time it consumes.

    So I always have to pull myself back:

    “It’s a hobby.”

    And:

    “My kids benefit more from having an attentive and involved father.”

    (Even though—let’s be honest—that can be exhausting too. But nobody gives you those early years back.)

    As interesting as creative experimentation can be, or interacting with followers when it actually happens, real connections simply carry more weight. If only because communication between real people happens on so many more levels (smiles, leers, scoffs, smirks).

    And if you’ve already lost a few meaningful connections throughout your life, you know just how valuable shared time really is.

    Time is something nobody gives back, either.

    Even Flow

    Well, that’s the dilemma of the attention machine.

    But I’ll figure it out. It certainly isn’t the first trade-off I’ve had to deal with.

    And even if those little dopamine drips feel great, you can’t actually buy anything with them.

    The ideal solution, of course, would be for Daddy Grunge to go viral immediately.

    That way there’d be no slow, creeping pull—just an overwhelming rush that would have to be contained by any means necessary.

    Ah well.

    Honestly, I’d much rather be talking about all this over a beer with real people.

    A Gen-X Daddy

  • The 90s Cure: Healing a burnt-out world!

    The 90s Cure: Healing a burnt-out world!

    Not Nostalgia. Recovery.

    So here we are now — stuck between the day-job grind, the responsibilities of fatherhood, and the ambitions that never quite faded. In my case, those ambitions were always built on music.

    Growing older shouldn’t feel like being buried alive, yet here it is: a mountain of routines, bills, and a culture engineered for distraction, hyper-capitalism, and permanent noise. 

    That is likely why the 90s still glow. Were they really better? Of course not. We lacked the tools that define our lives today. But somewhere in the technological leap, something human — a specific glimpse of hope — got lost.

    Bitter Sweet Symphony

    Is this just a GenX perception? On paper, the world is better off now: crime has gone down, and poverty and hunger have decreased. A lot was happening back then: The Wall had fallen. The Eastern bloc crumbled, the Cold War was over. Apartheid ended, Europe looked like it might finally come together and the world seemed to agree that they could tackle a major global challenge—climate change—together. The web opened new horizons. Science moved fast. Culture exploded – even the Beatles sort of “reunited”. Amazement was here, there, everywhere. “Globalization” was key. The world seemed to be on a Love Parade.

    But the decade carried its own brutality. The Gulf War. The Balkans. Rwanda. Mid-way through, the light dimmed: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin dealt a blow to the peace process in the Middle East. Mass shootings and market crashes proved that instability was always lurking. And we know now that while feminism finally reached the public eye, the exploitation of women remained rampant.

    Kurt Cobain’s suicide silenced the voice of a generation. Princess Diana’s death shook the world. 

    Still, why does the spirit of the 90s feel so unattainable now?

    Smells Like Teen Spirit

    The magic was the rawness. Styles were still forming. Scenes had edges. You could inhabit grunge and dance culture, alienation and hedonism, depth and nonsense — often all at once. Life was an exploration: spontaneous parties, concert trips, and long talks deep into the night. We followed impulses, not algorithms. We gathered in loose, chaotic crowds. Even the internet was a playground for stumbling across things, not a machine for performance and constant self-display.

    There was more space to be unfinished. More curiosity. More joy. Things meant something.

    Human Behaviour

    This isn’t an “old guy” rant about everything going down the drain. It’s about recovery. It’s about reclaiming the drive to try things out before they are polished and made marketable.

    What’s missing today isn’t the past; it’s the permission to be raw and the will to embrace the new without needing to own it. That creates a better understanding of each other — and more empathy for each other’s path.

    Keep openness up. Embrace exploration. Right about now!

    That’s Daddy Grunge.