Before doomscrooling social media feeds in the mid-2000s became a global pastime, I was the annoying friend who (whether they wanted them or not) sent them the weird, wacky, hard-to-find content, Napster leaks, Soulseek treats, cringy cartoons, blog-only music finds, web trends and videos from the edges of the cyber world. Eventually, I pitched a variation on the idea to editor Susan Krepart at Uptown Magazine and it would go on to be one of the first web-focused columns in the country.
As a contributing writer to the Winnipeg Free Press in the Music section (back when they had a full-time Music editor - Bart Kives), shortly after alloneword.ca gained traction, I would also start a weekly column called siteseeing that focused on the web, technology, music, movies and pop culture that ran in the Thursday entertainment section with editor Jill Wilson.
alloneword.ca would end it being Uptown’s longest-running column through various editors, reshufflings, recessions, ad-apocalypses and a series of self-inflicted tech-induced shots the in the foot during the transition from a stand-alone paper to part of the Free Press and probably a few things I have already forgotten. The arts and culture weekly was eventually bought by the Winnipeg Free Press and eventually unceremoniously tossed aside digitally in a move I’m sure a few would like to take back. alloneword.ca morphed into an expanded siteseeing and became an anchor in the reimagined Uptown section on Thursday’s with editor Jill Wilson, where it would continue to run until COVID came along and ruined the media landscape.
This time there would be no lucky ones escaping the unexpected impersonal email dismissals. I never even got a chance for a final column. Oh well, it was still fun while it lasted as it documented a certain moment in tech history, from the design brilliance of the first iPods to the genre-bending mash-up era of music to multi-media-driven opportunities only beginning to be explored in Web3 and the metaverse. Maybe this will help fill the void.
AI Self Portrait