THE INTERNET WAS BETTER WHEN IT WAS UGLY | ISSUE 002

Nobody had a personal brand. We had Bebo skins and emotional damage.

There is probably a photograph of you somewhere on a hard drive that would end your career. Taken on a digital camera. Flash on. Far too close to your face. Hair questionable. Outfit worse. Uploaded on the internet completely voluntarily. 

No editing.

No facetune. 

No standing in front of the mirror taking 47 versions of the same photograph before deciding your left arm looks weird in all of them. 

Just:

DSC_0047.JPG

Straight onto Bebo.

What a time to be alive. 

THE INTERNET USED TO BE FUCKING UGLY.

And we mean that as the highest possible compliment.

Everything flashed. Everything glittered. Everything had a song playing automatically that you couldn't find the button to turn off. Your cursor was surrounded by tiny stars. Your username probably contained an unnecessary amount of x's.

Your profile background looked like somebody had thrown leopard print, song lyrics and HTML at a wall. Graphic design was less of a profession and more of a threat. Nobody cared. 

Actually that's not true. We cared deeply. 

We just cared about completely different things. Like who was in somebody's MySpace Top 8.

Or why your best mate had changed their MSN name to:

~some people show their TRUE colours x~

Obviously not about you.

Definitely about you.

MSN WAS BASICALLY WARFARE

There are people walking around today who will never understand the psychological power of an MSN nudge.

You messaged someone. No response. So you nudged them. Their entire screen shook. Nothing.

Nudge again. 

You have reached the maximum number of nudges. 

Devastating. 

And then there was appearing offline. An act of digital espionage so advanced that MI5 should have been recruiting directly from 2nd Year. 

You could sign in. See who was online. Appear offline. 

Wait.

Strategically appear online so your crush received the notification. Then immediately change your status to Busy. Obviously you had shit to do. 

You were 12.

You had absolutely fuck all going on. 

THEN THERE WAS LIMEWIRE.

The Wild West.

You wanted one song. You clicked download. Forty-five minutes later you'd actually acquired three viruses, a completely different song and something called:

linkin_park_numb_FINAL_REAL_VERSION.exe

Dad was furious.

The family computer sounded like it was preparing for take-off. But occasionally it worked. 

And when it did? 

You'd found something. A song. A band. A weird forum. A corner of the internet nobody at school seemed to know about yet. 

Discovery actually felt like discovery. Music didn't arrive neatly packaged between sponsored posts. Somebody sent you a song over MSN. Someone had it playing over their profile. Your older cousin burned you a CD. You heard something through the wall of somebody's bedroom. 

Then suddenly, that band became your entire personality. 

WE USED TO FIND THINGS BY ACCIDENT.

That's maybe the bit we miss most. 

The internet now is frighteningly good at knowing what you like. Watch one video about running and congratulations. You are now a runner. Running shows. Running watches. Running influencers. Running nutrition. Running holidays. Running memes. 

Everything you already like is fed back t you forever. 

It's convenient. It's clever. It's also a little boring. Because some of the best things we've ever loved started with:

"What the fuck is this?"

BEFORE THE ALGORITHM, THERE WAS SOME RANDOM PERSON CALLED xX_EMO_KID_92_Xx.

Forums were full of strangers arguing about things nobody else cared about. 

People made websites dedicated to incredibly specific interests. Bands became huge because teenagers put their songs on their profiles. 

You could disappear down some strange internet rabbit hole and emerge three hours later knowing everything about Japanese streetwear despite living in a small town in Scotland. 

Nobody called it community building. Nobody called it content strategy. Nobody asked you to subscribe to their newsletter. 

People just liked things. 

A lot. 

And they wanted to find other people who liked them too. That was enough.

THEN SOMETHING CHANGED.

The internet got beautiful. 

Phones got better. Cameras got better. Websites got better. Everything became faster, cleaner and easier. And somewhere in the process, we became significantly more aware that everybody was watching. Suddenly the profile wasn't just your profile. 

It was you.

Employers could see it. People you fancied could see it. People you went to school with ten years ago could see it. People you had never met could see it. Then became followers.

Analytics. Reach. Engagement. Personal brands. Content pillars. Optimal posting times. 

And now you can upload a photograph of yourself eating pasta in Italy and spend the next 20 minutes wondering whether it fits your feed. 

We have accidentally given ourselves PR departments. 

WE ARE ALL OUR OWN PAPARAZZI NOW

That's the strange thing.

Nobody even needs to photograph us anymore. We'll do it ourselves.

We'll take 60 photographs of the same moment. Check them immediately. Delete 54. Edit 4. Choose 1. Post it 2 weeks later then write:

"little spontaneous weekend away x"

Spontaneous? 

There's a Lightroom preset involved, Paige. 

The old photographs weren't better because the cameras were worse. They were better because we weren't thinking about the photograph yet. 

Someone pulled a camera out. FLASH. Done. 

You saw it 3 days later when they uploaded an album containing 163 completely random, unedited photographs called:

"random weekend lol x"

Half were blurry. Someone always had their eyes closed. There were 19 photographs of absolutely nothing. 

And somehow those albums now feel more alive than half the internet.

Because nobody was producing a memory. 

They were just having one. 

NOBODY WAS BUILDING A PERSONAL BRAND.

Imagine telling your 2006 self that one day you'd need to consider your personal brand. 

You'd assume you were becoming the next Britney Spears (this is 2006, we'd still have our hair...for now).

Somewhere along the way we started treating ourselves like businesses. And look - there are good reasons for this. The internet has created careers that couldn't have existed before. People have built companies from their bedrooms. Artists can find audiences without record labels. Someone in a tiny Scottish town can make something tonight and sell it to somebody in New York tomorrow. 

That's fucking brilliant. 

We don't want that part to disappear. But maybe, we've taken the branding bit a little too seriously. Because now people are terrified to post something unless it looks like something they'd post. 

Read that sentence again. 

That's mental. 

THE INTERNET HAS A DRESS CODE NOW.

Neutral apartment. Good lighting. Clean typography. Perfectly positioned coffee. Carefully messy desk. Caption with a hook. Maybe a little vulnerability. But not too much. The aesthetically pleasing kind. Even rebellion has a fucking mood board. 

And Tuesday Club would like to formally submit a complaint.

MAYBE CRINGE WAS GOOD FOR US.

Because cringe means we tried something. 

You cared too much. You wore the thing. You wrote the terrible status. 

You told everyone you were going to become a photographer because your parents bought you a digital camera for Christmas. You existed publicly without knowing whether people would approve. 

That's quite brave, actually. 

Somewhere between the MySpace Top 8 and the LinkedIn personal brand, we became terrified of leaving evidence that we'd ever been uncool. Tuesday Club thinks there should be more evidence. 

So take the photograph. 

The band one.

Put the flash on. Start the weird project. Change your website. Wear something ridiculous. Make something ugly. Post before you've stared at it for three hours. Find music your algorithm hasn't selected specifically for you. Have interests that make absolutely no sense besides each other. 

Let your life clash a bit. 

You are not a fucking Instagram grid. 

Because perfect is everywhere right now.

Ugly?

Ugly is getting interesting again.