cohost.org shut its doors on october 1st, 2024.

it's hard to put it into words what i did and didn't like about it. i think the lack of numbers was excellent. i found it broke a lot of habits i didn't know i had. i liked that i'd get notifications, and be able to see who liked a post, etc, but without some sort of number "value" attributed to any given post. i liked how tags worked. i liked how 'pages' worked (just like tumblr sub-blogs!). i liked the alt text option being more prominent.

above all, i love what it did to internet engagement, both for me and other users of cohost. like a post? you can tell them! directly! you can say whatever you want. it really encouraged less 'tag speak' (the kind you see on tumblr, where tags are used as a quiet comment in many circles) and more 'real speak'. i thought that not having the ability to check tags added to shares of my posts was annoying for a while, but now i realize that it actually encouraged more direct conversation, with more words and details.

it makes you think, you know, like, there's this trend online where things can be reacted to in certain ways, but above all else, convenient short replies power a lot of social media. twitter, for example, and even tumblr in some regards (remember the unstated 'tag speak' etiquette i mentioned before). it takes energy to formulate replies longer than a sentence. but it'll get harder if you don't try once in a while, you know?

at least, that was my experience. heck, even outside of cohost before-and-post closure, i've been making an active, conscious effort to reach out when i see some piece of art that moves me in some way. i hone in on what it is that i liked, and i tell the artist such. i think it benefits me here that i took some art classes in school and college that helped round out my 'dictionary' of art terms and it allows me to really give specific compliments that people have told me they remember for a while.

a thoughtful, specific comment will stay in someone's head longer than 'cool!' or a fave/like.

and that's kind of what cohost homed in on. probably one of its best features. it also encouraged me and others to make extensive posts about niche subjects, and further still, it encouraged others to seek out and read them! cohost had a lot of power in sharing essays like that.

one of categories of post i enjoyed were the longform posts from propaganda rock (by shel and junipertheory, reviewing each schoolhouse rock episode and rating its educational, entertaintional (not a word), and bigoted points. just really interesting to comb through. i think a lot about the number 9 episode and how they reviewed it; i think it's fun and interesting to see where the series succeeded and failed.

and that's not touching on css crimes. the whole 'css crime' culture was immaculate. people did some really funny things with css and markdown that i didn't think markdown could do. my favorites were ones that accurately emulated some image format... with css. so it wasn't just an image! they went and made the text selectable. they did the text glow or shadow. you know? that's dedication.

one of my favorite css crimes creators was blackle. it made so many cool posts. my favorite has to be this css gizmo; i kept returning to it just because it felt so good to play with and look at. (click and drag the rope end on the left!) you can see an archive of all of its css crimes on IA here.

there was also the NES Pictionary bot, which i actually contributed a drawing or two towards. this memoriam by the creator of the bot goes over its concept and execution. i'm even listed in the credits down there! hehe.

i will also say cohost had a really good environment for adult art. it was easy to find and post stuff that you wanted to see, and with the content warning system and filter system, it was easy to hide what you didn't want to see. i really wish we could have something like it again soon. we'll see. every 'social media' on the internet tends to be very hostile about LGBT adult art.

all in all, i don't think we'll see anything quite like cohost again. it had its own issues, but my circle was small enough i only saw a fraction of them directly. and hopefully these issues can be addressed more directly in similar future projects.

to wrap this up, i want to share the blogs of some of my favorite chosters.

• kokoscript
• barleydog
• misty's blog
• azure's blog
• ponett gazette
• atomicthumbs (& forest.stream)

thank you, eggbug, for breaking some bad habits!