bookmarks as life history
I was going over my Pocket export file before importing to MB to cull dead links, etc. I used Pocket copiously since it was released in 2015 until 2021 (concurrently w Pinboard, no idea why I used two, don’t ask, I don’t have an answer, I’m sure it made sense to me at the time).
When I started using Pocket I imported links from some other service I was using prior, so I have bookmarks in Pocket going back to 2008. A long list of bookmarks, covering the last 15 years of my life.
Going over that list was a real weird “life flashing before eyes” kind of experience.
Certain evergreen topics that ebb and flow but never go away, currents that have continuity. Other topics that dominated and then disappeared:
- big rush on the development of organized religion, biblical history, the roots of evangelicalism, etc. from 2010-2011 when I was stepping out of the church + religion I grew up in
- an absolute hoard on homeschooling from 2012-2016, when I was doing my best to homeschool 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 children. I can't believe how much I thought I could do that and also, like, sleep!
- an absolutely frantic stockpile of saves on HR in 2016-2017 when I had my first full-time job at a start-up and they asked me to "handle HR" as well as doing the role I was actually hired to do (content director)
I also noticed trends in evergreen topics, e.g.:
- personal growth: my bookmarks went from articles focused on 'how to be a good wife/mom/person' and 'becoming confident' and 'how to be an introverted person surrounded by extroverted people without going apeshit' to things like 'being honest with yourself' and 'why do women people-please' and 'how to set boundaries' and 'rejecting toxic positivity' and 'are you codependent?' (Shortly thereafter, a topical spike in articles about divorce after 40, women and divorce, becoming a single mom, starting over in your 40s, etc.)
- productivity: bookmarks started with a heavy focus on 'how to do an insane amount of things every day all day without failing' and 'HERE is the perfect system for productivity' and gradually became about 'why solitude matters' and 'how to rest without guilt' and 'stop excessive goal-setting.'
An interesting (to me) little timeline of personal history.
jabel That’s really cool. I’ve found the same thing to be true for me with my reading log.
Rene van Belzen Once I noticed websites vanish or restructure after a few years (which is almost the same) I gave up on actively bookmarking for nostalgic reasons. In principle the web is for ever and permanent, but in practice it is ephemeral. I only bookmark to read later, not to archive. The latter is a fool’s errand, in my opinion.
annie's micro(b)log @Miraz I like to think I’ve progressed as a person. Time will tell! 😅
annie's micro(b)log @jabel Oh, I bet! my kindle history tells an interesting story too…
annie's micro(b)log @renevanbelzen I love that things disappear, actually. I don’t need that article on best new marketing apps of 2016 to stay with me in 2023. (also thank the holy goddess of career shifting that I no longer have to read articles like that.)
on the other hand, even tho I primarily use bookmarking as a read-later cache, I ended up with an interesting (if incomplete) archive. Kind of cool to have that too.
Pat Dryburgh This is a super smart idea! I need to go back through my Instapaper and Pinboard accounts.
Numeric Citizen @renevanbelzen when you bookmark with Micro.blog, the content is archived… the source might disappear by owner’s decision but an archive will be kept in your bookmarks! But yeah, the web is absolutely ephemeral.
Rene van Belzen @numericcitizen I thought that was a premium feature. Also, there’s an authorship issue here. Is it (morally, legally) okay when an author retracts an article to keep it around in an archive? Maybe it is, but reposting someone else’s retracted post verbatim certainly isn’t, that’s plagerism.
Numeric Citizen @renevanbelzen it is indeed a premium feature. The way I see it, if an article gets published, anyone can take a screenshot, archive it, print it for its own use. Creating a link post refering to the source, mentionnning the author, containing a small portion of the original content, even though the article was retired by its author, is in now way plagiarism or not ok, in my book. Micro.blog archiving process doesn’t expose the archived version of the content to the general public to my knowledge. If it does, then, yes, it is a problem.
Michael Bogdanffy-kriegh love this post… was never a big bookmarks person, but now I wish I had been:)
annie's micro(b)log @mbkriegh you can start now with a very fresh microblog setup :)
Todd Grotenhuis good insight…now I’m regretting I didn’t port links each time I switched services. (and am regretting so many switches…though this is a good nudge to keep with my current)