Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, ”The tale of the 90s that were and are again”.

Fellow 90s kids may well remember our dreams of the future; robots, jet-packs, hover-cars, and other things that fly. Our internet with it’s telephonic hisses and beeps was a neon <table> and gif-laden monument to laissez-faire individualism and liberty. Both free of borders and more American than Coke™.

It was a nerd-party. Inverse to real-life parties in that the hip and the mainstream didn’t really have a place until social networks became a thing. We have all kinds of party parades now: high-school reunions, singles mixers, baby showers for multiple babies, and cat appreciation societies.

👙🐱🎉

Parades are great, but there’s something to be said for the neighborhood bar, or local cafe. Intimate, small places where you can be whoever you want and get to know a small group of friends.

As people who weave the language of machines, there’s magic in what we can do even if we can no longer see it. Since moving to NYC, I’ve met more than a handful of people who’ve created their own close-knit social places on the internet. Seems obvious, also very cool – why don’t more of us do this?

Stuff Cool People Say is something I cobbled together in a few hours. Comparably, it’s the broke-ass corner bodega. Probably the only place you could find a freezie in Manhattan.

To make it, I spun something up with the lightest http thing I know (Sinatra, Express, etc.). Rendered a <textarea> that posts to a database and we’ve got the seed of something social. (Before I drop the mic, I’d ideally add some auth - but y’know whatever.)

The hard part wasn’t actually writing it, but finding a simple place to host/run it. What would the internet be like with a Geocities for web-apps?