つづく...

Disclaimer: When it comes to retro tech, I'm a total nepobaby. I rarely buy my own stuff, it's mostly all things my parents have bought over the decades. Even my film reels were from a ziplock back from 2004 that my mum found lying around. If you're looking to get into this stuff, I definitely reccommend looking around your parents or family member's stuff if you can.

Music - Cassettes
Due to my intense interest in the Japanese 80s band 'Omega Tribe', I got quite interested in collecting cassette tapes, especially since they were so cheap on Mercari.

To listen to my tapes, I use the Sanyo Voice Activated System cassette recorder Model M1118, which as far as I know is from the 1990s. The listening quality is alright, I'm sure you can find better. I haven't tested out the voice recording system yet but I hope to in the future! We had a boombox that does play CDs (and maybe the radio?) but unfortunately it ate up the Eros Ramazzotti tape I put in :(.

My favourite tapes I have include:

• Sugiyama Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe - River's Island (my first ever cassette tape)
• A tape in Arabic I can't read but I love it
• Barbara - Run run run / Motion
• DJ和 - あの頃みたいと君が笑った
• Now That's What I Call 29 (it's got Blur's Park Life and The Cranberrie's Zombie)

Music - CDs
Getting into cassettes was what got me into CDs. Finding cassettes in brick and morter shops was difficult but CDs are everywhere! We have a lot of them at home, and charity shops always have great deals on CDs, especially since their shelves are often full.

I listen to CDs on my Panasonic Portable CD Player SL-S125 from 1997. These don't play music by themselves so the quality of the output depends on what you use as a speaker or headphones. That being said, my current set-up has really good audio quality! I've been listening to my CDs quite frequently, often going through a CD per night.

While shops like HMV are great for new releases, I really do reccommend checking charity shops. In my previous blog "CD Party" I wrote about my buy one get one free deal my local shop had that let me get 2 CDs for £2 (Best of Sade helloo), I went back last week and this time decided to pick up 4 CDs. £4 not that bad right? The woman at the till just scanned one and gave me a buy one get THREE free? I'm probably not going to go back for some time, it's too tempting and as much as I love my collection, I don't want to accumulate too much stuff.

I have a more extensice CD collection than my cassettes so I'll probably list them and my favourites in the media tab I'm working on at the minute. but the CD I'm listening to while writing this is 新紀元 by Satoru Ono. I really like the Kyoto indie scene, so when I've been in the city I always pick up a cassette or CD from an artist I've never heard of (like Barbara). This one definitely didn't disappoint.

One of my favourite stories relating to CDs regards one of my favourite finds. Picture this: sunny day in South London. I walk to a town near me that's a bit posh. Check out the charity shop, they have CDs for a quid each! Bargain, especially comparing to HMV. I find Franz Ferdinand's debut self-titled album and their second album. Right out the gate it's two goals in a row for me, I love British rock, especially this era. I flip through some more, and there it is.

H.O.T High-five Of Teenagers, LIVE concert, Seoul Main Stadium 1999

Holy shit. It's a hat-trick like no other. If you couldn't tell from the website name, I am a really big fan of 1st generation 90s Kpop. And finding this CD in a small town where I've never seen anyone discuss any kpop before 2009 blew my mind. I started looking round the store as if one of the grannies was gonna snatch it from my hand. Unfortunately, it's a video CD so it doesn't play the audio on my Panasonic. Still cool, makes me want a CRT.

Music - MP3 Player
I've only recently started using this iPod. The memory listening to Demon Days by the Gorillaz on this iPod while in the kitchen is very nostalgic to me. There's also a bunch of baby photos of me in it for some reason. To be honest, I haven't used it all too much as there's about a thousand or so songs ranging from Mozart to Italian Eros Ramazzotti, Moroccan folk music to Craig David, it's hard to sift through. It would be good for taking on trips unlike my CD player which is portable but doesnt like to be jostled around. For me, this almost ventures into Spotify streamer territory. I can have thousands or songs at a touch at any time, but I have my phone for that. The reason I like my CDs and Cassettes is because it breaks my music listening habits which I've personally found to decrease my attention or not appreciate music as much. But it even has a few games!

Attached to the iPod is my JBL On Stage ii from 2005, it's custom built for the iPod with it's own holder and charger and potentially a remote control which I currently do not have. The quality is really good so I've been using it as my CD player speaker.

Cameras - Film
I got into shooting photos on film when I was 17 and brought a disposable camera on my camping trip to the Isle of Wight- I had previously brought one with me to the island when I had gone for a week with my school when I was 10. Eventually, instead of getting more disposables every time I developed a roll (it's wasteful and disposable cameras don't have very good sensitivity) I found some film cameras and started using the trusty point-and-shoot. The reason I like film photography is because of the delayed gratification of it, as well as the way it looks (same with digital but that's because I'm one of those digicam owners who never offload their SD card).

This is my Ricoh R1 from the 1994, man I loved this camera so much. It's been through a lot with me, I would go out with this every day. It was my mum's before it was mine but even she didn't buy this, she found it while working at St. Paul's Cathedral. The first time I developed the roll that was already in the camera there were some shots already taken? My parents don't recognise it and don't think it's either the UK or Italy. If you think it looks familiar, please write in!
To be honest, most of my photos are of my friends, especially at parties so the examples below are some examples of raw photos I've taken of environments. A lot of the film I shot on was expired too but I liked the effect it had. The camera had some red light as you can see from the bottom two photos, I ended up liking it.

Cameras - Digital
Just before I was set to leave for Singapore, the shutter broke. I have hope that it can be fixed in the future, but this prompted me to bring a digital camera instead as I didn't want to waste my memories on another older film camera that ran the risk of breaking just like my Ricoh. Thus, the FUJIFILM XP170 Finepix has become my go-to.

There was another digital camera in the mix, but if I were to go through all of the digital cameras in my life this blog will never end. Anyway, this camera is waterproof and technically has bluetooth which apparently hasn't worked for a decade. Technically, this camera belongs to the company my dad used to work for, for building site inspections, but no one has asked for it in 14 years so...

I've enjoyed taking videos and photos on this a lot, like before my friends always trust me with party photography but since I don't want to expose anyone here are some other examples. I think I get better with every party honestly.


Listen, I'm not gonna claim to be the best photographer ever, I just like taking photos of my friends and I like when my friends like those photos.

All in all, I'm really starting to get tired of nostalgia farming. I also hate trends where people go out to buy things, especially if they're firsthand new. I like using old stuff because I like to use things till they break and I like having something that's not on my phone or laptop. This isn't to say that people who aren't as fortunate to have access to this stuff are bad for purchasing their tech, more that you should definitely think about the longevity of your interest before investing potentially hundreds of pounds into something that'll get equipment. But also do try out new things. Arghh the nuance, the nuance. The real takeaway is thank you mum and dad for not throwing away your stuff. There's tonnes more things I could add here but I don't wanna take photos and edit them all. If you're into any of this stuff let me know, I'd love to chat!

Currently watching: Ludwig Season 2 (2026)

Currently listening: 新紀元 - Satoru Ono (2022)

Currently feeling: September is for new beginnings

Thinking about actively creating and nurturing third places in a society that has become increasingly more isolated.

Warning: this is more of a semi-planned stream of consciousness regarding my thoughts on the topic rather than a well-researched, persuasive essay. I missed out a lot of things but what is written is all sincere.

I have to admit, this summer hasn't exactly been one of the best in my life, with many of my friends working, on holiday or living outside of London, I've found myself in a nasty sleep cycle and spending a disproportionate amount of my time indoors. It's not been all bad, it's given me time to make this website but since my last internet-focused blog left off with "I believe in focusing on in person third places now more than ever" I thought I should expand more on my thoughts surrounding Going Outside.

Part of what made me want to write this is frustration at my own current situation (stuck at home, local library closed for refurbishment, obviously can't bring my drawing tablet to my new local cafe to work. I really struggle to work alone which is tough when my job is being a remote freelance animator/ illustrator) and coming across a personal website that followed a very interesting ideology. Without getting too in the weeds, the webmaster placed their digital life and the curation of this digital life above their in-person social life, citing that they felt trapped in a physical relaity where everything revolves around the online- they're not wrong about that. I think I'll expand on this topic in another blog but the almost reverence of NEETism and Hikkikomori in otaku spaces in fascinating even when users acknowledge the mental health implications of it. What cuaght my eye on this page was that this was seen as positive.

Third Places

Third places, as defined by Ray Oldenburg are places seperate to the "first place" (home) and the "second place" (work or school). Oldenburg and Karen Christensen state that characteristics that define a third place include being open without invitation, a feeling of belonging, a place with regulars and a lack of hierachy, conversation is the main activity. They expand further in their book The Great Good Place but I won't pretend to have read it. Examples of third places include: libraries, cafes, book shops, parks, bath houses, pubs, places of worship and more. Even a LAN party could count! Oldenburg and Christensen go on to argue that third places are important for democracy, community and developing a sense of belonging. With COVID ushering the collapse of the first place and second place into one with remote work, a society with an unending sense of isolation and companies that want to market the idea of third places into luxery commodities, creating them now is more important than ever.

Before I had the terminology for it, this was always something I wanted to create. All throughout secondary school, I used to make my journey in an hour and a half before registration began, most teachers arrived and the morning cafeteria had even opened. Not too disimilar to The Breakfast Club, our breakfast table had a whole variety of people from across social groups. Some people became regulars, some drifted in and out, some (like me) were there at the crack of dawn in the winter while some made a brief appearance just before Form time would begin. We made jokes, told stories, did our homework, copied someone elses homework, it was my daily ritual for 5 years. No one had incetivised us to do this, it just came about on its own. It might sound a little bit boomer-esque but I attribute a decent part of the breakfast table's success to our schools no phones out policy. Even though there were rarely any members of staff watching us, a phone would get taken away every now and then to enforce it and even then, there was no need to be online when your friends were right there. I'm not sure if we could recreate it amongst ourselves today.

In it's purest sense, the breakfast table wasn't a third place, it was very much connected to the second place which was school, but it allowed us to socialise and have a buffer time between home and out lessons in a safe environment without heavy supervision, and as such we cared about our space. When someone littered, we told them off. When someone spilled something, we got a tissue. When the grease from someone's hair rubbed on the back panel of the seat... well legend says that it's still there to this day. I believe that without realising it, we had ticked off all of Oldenburg and Christensen's requirements. Although I'm not the type to reminisce about school, I think I've unknowingly been longing for something like the breakfast table ever since.

As I grew up, I realised that this isn't so easy to comeby and that I would have to put some of the work in myself. I had studied in cafes before and liked the environment but the current chain we were going to was no longer cutting it with it's autumnal basement that was closing increasingly earlier. I decided to try another chain coffee shop, across the street which had an upstairs section with a lot of sunlight and so started our next Place. I met some of my best friends here, and since we were 17 going on 18 we were more suited to interact with the general public and not be confined to school. When the cafe would close we would sometimes move to the library, I really did feel like a part of the town. As people started heading across the country for university, things winded down. The final nail in the coffin was this particular chain being on the boycott list.

This brings me back around to my over-arching point. Building a community requires a lot of work when you become an adult. People move, become busy, your new friends don't live in the same town as you or even the same country. It's no wonder we turn to social media as our place away from home and work. If anything, this is what companies want from us. The cost of convenience is our high streets and third places. Delivery apps are a big example, what could be a night out, going somewhere new and maybe even becoming a regular has been confined to the home, (if it even is a real restaurant you're ordering from). Why go to the shops when you can order it online? Why go to supermarket when you can order it online? Why go to the cinema when you can stream it online? Who wins from this? The companies who collect endless amounts of data in order to sell you endless more things or you who becomes comfortably siloed away from the people around you?

It's not all doom and gloom though!

Firstly, I want to highlight a community that I'm not a part of but respect a lot. The Super Smash Bros community. Close friends of mine will know that I am a big fan a podcast called The Yard which came to be because of the Smash Melee competitive scene. For those who want an in depth introduction, I highly reccommend the 2013 documentary,The Smash Brothers. Even if you don't care about Smash now, you will leave caring. Before Slippi introduced online gaming, the only way to play people and improve was to actually find someone to play. This has created a culture of people hosting their own local weekly tournaments and friendlies, communities banding together when it comes to bigger events and a way to engage in competitive games in a safe environment with a relatively low barrier of entry. This 20 year old community is something I'd like to emulate. get it?

Here's somethings you and should do if you can:

• Host your friends
• Suggest starting a boardgame night or book club
• Use your local library (use it or lose it)
• Try out local businesses in your area
• Just generally trying something new as often as you can!
• Don't spend the night in, go out! Doesn't need to be to a club, a bar or pub is fine too!
• If you need to, keep a spreadsheet of the last time you spoke to casual friends (when you become an adult, time between speaking gets larger and larger)
• If you're in school, go out with your friends before or after school. Maybe start your own breakfast table. To some this might seem obvious but some friend groups don't do this. If you rely on school and class to see your friends, you will have a bad wakeup call in the future.

I acknowledge I'm pretty lucky to live near a major metropolis with good public transport so uuh take all that with a grain of salt. This isn't as concise as my last blog, I just wanted to type my feelings out. This isn't a substack, sorry! One day I'll come back to this with a essay full of citations and theory and quotes from Marx. Anyway here's some related reading.

The Cost of Convenience: We have fallen out of love with the process by Nubia Assata (2024)

The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg (1989) - this is more reccommended for me more than anyone else.

Currently watching: Uncut Gems (2019)

Currently listening: The Best of Sade (1994)

Currently feeling: Cooped Up

With stricter regulations attacking the anonymity of social media users in the UK, I reflect on what specifically drew me to the Indie Web, the freedoms it allows, how to continue it in the era of Web 3 and why this is all more than just an aesthetic glittering heisei stuff.

Summing up how I feel about the internet is pretty difficult, but my feelings about the small web or "indie web" are pretty clear.

I live in the United Kingdom, which has been hit with new waves of internet censorship. At first it was age verification to view pornographic content. It's hard to argue against it without sounding like you're trying to advocate for children to view porn, but it was an almost comically obvious trojan horse. Soon after this, multiple websites (Spachey, Imgur) stopped allowing users from the UK to use their services and social media sites started barring certain content from being shown. It's fine. I can use a VPN. I could go on a whole spiel about the dangers this brought internet users, especially minors, but this isn't about that right now.

Now in a new show that is apparently supposed to be against Big Tech, British users of social media will soon be forced to verify their age in order to use social media accounts such as Instagram, Twitter, etc. As I said, my thoughts on big social media and how the internet revolves around a few big companies is muddy but the truth remains that my job is pretty dependant on social media. Showing your ID to a 3rd party Palantir sponsored website that promises to delete your data? What a win!!

I could go on, and one day I will go on about it, but right now there's a clawing feeling tugging at my chest just thinking about it and typing it. I feel like I'm watching democracy and freedom and this wild west internet fall out of the palms of my hand. Maybe it was never there to begin with.

And now we return to the Small Web.

I've been on the internet for quite some time now. I've been surfing the web since 2009 believe it or not, the golden age for a child to be online (with it's risks). I won't pretend to have been there for Geocities, in fact I came online just as the death toll rang, but I do still remember a time when websites were still in mode and social media had started to replace them as The New Thing. It's hard to say I miss something that I wasn't fully present for but I will try to explain why I advocate to Look Back for the Future.

Let me start off by stating that this is not about the aesthetics. I don't find myself fussed with the idea of "webcore", inbred reimagining of "frutiger aero", or whatever trend comes after that nostalgia baits us all to death. Listen, I'm an artist and human being, of course I love when things look beautiful or when a website looks interesting and the webmaster has a good eye for design. But much of this is due to the blank canvas that html offers in comparison to traditional social media. A website with a basic design might have more to say than a website with a 100 pngs flashing, it also might not.

The small web provides information and insight without ads, without age verification and without a Big Tech corp following you around tracking your every move (maybe). The websites that I come across are there because someone had something to share or at the very least because they want to be there. With websites there's no instant gratifying loop that comes with scrolling, watching users fight, seeing something you absolutely despise. It's just you and what the webmaster wants you to read and maaybe a guestbook. This doesn't mean that the indie web will cure your screen time, if anything it just turns your social media addiction into an internet addiction. What can I say, clicking links it fun.

Arguably, the archetype of a indie webmaster is an anime lover who is perhaps a little isolated (see: this website). This was prevalent during the reign of Geocities and continues to be true now, but it's not all otaku folk here. Clicking a link can send you anywhere. My most recent interest found me through a site called Wizardnet.net. How I came across Wizardnet I couldn't tell you, maybe through a radio webring, all I know is that they introduced me to WebSDR, which then bolstered my interest not only in amateur radio but analogue amateur radio. Within a week I had gone from occasionally tuning into Montreal's n10.as radio to fine tuning someone's radio receiver across continents to listen in live to amateur hobbyists communicating to each other to live broadcasts from the Democratic Republic of Korea in Spanish. On one of my calls with my friend Tansha, we spent the good part of an hour trying to decode a morse code signal for a maritime radio station somewhere in North America, and though we didn't understand what they were on about, it in itself was highly rewarding. We didn't have to pay for these sites, nor was there any advertising. It was just radio enthusiasts offering up their services, to share their passion. All this is to say that the indie web is much more than personal pages detailing someone's favourite media. It's radio stations, forums, science projects, articles. If you look for it you will find it.

So what's my thesis?

I want to help build a web community that is meaningful and longlasting. I want to build a world wide web that isn't controlled by a few powerful companies. I want to use a world wide web that isn't censored by governments. I have no interest in AI, nor do I have interest in the cultural necrosis of feel-good nostalgia for a time that I wasn't even there for. The indie web should work for 21st century users and evolve while staying true to the core principles that drew users to it in the first place. And maybe surprisingly, above all, I believe in focusing on in person third places now more than ever.


This was a bit of a stream of consciousness, I hope it was coherent, even if it wasn't tied together perfectly. I do really care about this whole web stuff, it's what made me want to pursue animation in the first place. In future I want to share some articles about this topic further as well as make a whole blog post about my love for radio so stay tuned (get it?). In the meantime, I think everyone should try their hand at making a website, and if you already have one but don't really use it then I encourage you to use it to your potential! Anyway here's some reccommended reading of actually good writings surrounding the topic:

This Webpage is Designed to Last by Jeff Huang (2019)
Neocities and the Lack of Passion by Mariteaux (2016). Yes, it's the famous Neocities think-piece, still as relevant in 2026 as it was in 2016. Although as of writing this my website is still in its infancy- 1 month and still going- it has served as a motivator to keep this going and to try and develop this place into something that one day people will find useful.
The Issue of Stealing on Neocities by Suni (2022). Seeing as a friend of mine has had her entire website code stolen yesterday, this seems pretty relevant. This blog post speaks about web design as an actual art, and it's not just limited to Neocities.
In Praise of Links by Coyote (2025).

Currently watching: Begin Again (2013)

Currently feeling: A bit anxious about "It All"

Best friend's birthday party in a week, looking through charity shops for an outfit for her and ended up persuing the CD section. They had Dance Party 2013 for £2 with such classics as PJ & Duncan's 'Lets Get Ready to Rumble', Little Mix 'DNA' and of course PSY's Gangnam Style. They also had a buy one get one free offer so as I kept looking I found Best of Sade, for free! Now if only I could find my aux cord...