I call myself a Digital Creative [explained]
Back in 2015, I collected a few of my poems, printed them out, and handed them to my closest friends. I titled the collection “Diary of Losses”. In my mid-twenties, I tended to overdramatise my frustrations, disappointments, or setbacks (I still do), while the major upheavals were still waiting for me ahead—harsh and quite unpoetical.
Photo by Junpei Qi on Unsplash
Apart from that self-published collection, everything else I wrote went digital. I started my first blog on LiveJournal as a student. Then, as a graduate, a few of my articles were published on online platforms focused on history and culture in Ukraine. When I learned how to code, I started another blog on Medium to follow my progress. There were a few other online platforms along the way, most of which I eventually left behind, but this year I switched to Bear (and stayed).
I do have profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, though. Keeping them alive takes more and more time and effort. Moreover, my online identities (and interactions) on social media are constantly transformed into data I have no control over. They are scattered, uneven, and fluid. Blogging is my way of framing them, of showing that I am here to tell the story on my own terms.
So what story about myself am I trying to tell, anyway?
I think of myself as a digital creative, where “digital” stands both for the knowledge and skills of navigating and working on the web, and “creative” for openness—and, at the same time, doubt about what I believe, consume, or share. My area of interest and expertise drifts between culture and technology, and I have come to see this not as a split, but as an advantage.
Social media and the corporations behind them pretend to be total, ubiquitous, and unavoidable. They are not. People around the globe are reducing their screen time and turning off notifications (a practice often referred to as digital minimalism) and that’s okay. But I propose taking it a step further and trying to think of an alternative.
Something like Bear.
Its design and philosophy focus your attention on your own form, not just your performance. I truly believe that imagining a better world, and developing the skills to create it, is already an act of resistance against the system that pretends to be the only possible reality.