“Chasing the Early 2000s High”
Do you remember what the internet actually felt like before it turned into a sanitized, corporate playground?
Back in the early 2000s, blogging was creative, weird, and personal. You didn’t have to worry about some invisible algorithm deciding if your thoughts were “brand safe” or engaging enough to earn a spot on a feed or search engine. You just built a site, wrote whatever the hell was on your mind, and maybe slapped a webring banner at the bottom. It was beautiful, it was human, and most importantly, it was OURS.
I have a deep, aching nostalgia for that era, maybe because that is the era where my career (or what used to be a career) started. I miss an internet where websites were unique, not these copy-and-pasted clones of the same 5 sites you see over and over. Today, everything is optimized, monetized, and scraped harder than a hooker’s knees. You can’t even write a sentence without wondering which bot is skimming it to train some AI, or which platform is going to shadowban you for using the wrong keyword. I am so done with it.
Pink Nest Diaries is my way of dragging that old-school, wild-west web ethos raging into the present day. Sure, my custom CSS is a hell of a lot cleaner now than the nested tables I used twenty years ago, and I would rather die than install a glitter trailing cursor (or maybe I should just because I can), but the spirit is exactly the same.
This is my corner of the web. My words. My opinions. If I want to write a deeply unhinged rant about life or just talk to the void without checking my engagement metrics, I’m going to do it. No corporate oversight, no algorithms feeding you rage bait, and absolutely no bots welcome.
THE VILLAIN ORIGIN STORY
Random things about me:
I love God (and yes, I am a cursing Christian). I’m not perfect enough for the perfects in the world, and not destructive enough for the non-perfects.
I was an IT Unicorn. I could design, code, and manage databases. Long before major brands knew what the internet was, I was building their first websites and e-commerce platforms. I’ve worked for publicly traded news orgs, software companies, ran my own design agency, and was briefly a fashion illustrator.
I gave up a highly lucrative career to raise kids. Because of this, I am now completely dependent on my husband for food, water, toilet, and shelter (like a fucking cat).
The resume gap is brutal. I still struggle with my current setup, but when I try to re-enter the workforce, I get completely ignored because I’ve been out of the game “too long.” Ladies, the discrimination is real. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t, but definitely damned.
I have too many hobbies and an M-type brain. I play piano, paint, draw, sew, garden, restore furniture, cook, bake, decorate cakes, and take pictures of wildlife. I’m blessed to just hyper-focus on whatever suits my fancy for the season.
