Maybe having your first blog post feature a profanity isn’t the best way to start, but here we are anyways. I’m saying my shit.

Who the hell are you?

My name is Hafidz Wibowo. I’m a 21-year-old digital creative based in Jakarta, Indonesia. I’ve been creating stuff on the internet for my whole life now, starting from small Windows applications, dumb video games, gaming YouTube videos, and now primarily music production… You get the point. I create dope shit on the internet.

Talking about blogs

Let’s talk about blogs. I don’t really see myself as a “writer” (except maybe songwriting), but I’ve created a lot of stuff that I can say I did a whole lot.

My prior blogs

This is not my first attempt of blogging in the internet. I had a stint of Blogspot era back in 2014-2016 (I love unsupervised internet access at a young age) with a close friend of mine. We’re also inspired by writers alike of Raditya Dika and Kevin Anggara writing their thoughts on their little blog, and we’d do that too. I remember I wrote about a GTA San Andreas easter egg in the final mission and thinking wow, I’m proud of this! It was just a paragraph and a huge image of the easter egg accompanying it (it was a Rockstar logo mat).

Fast forward to 2023, I was quite tempted to start a weekly blog roughly in this same vein. Tech, media, creativity, using this same website. But alas, here we are… And I’m not gonna do this weekly though, so sorry y’all. I will upload whatever, whenever.

How did I make this

Without getting too much in the weeds of web development (which I frankly know little about), I used Astro for this website, a JavaScript-based web framework. The core of the blog itself is a Markdown so I can use software like Obsidian to write locally before I hit publish. I then mirror it to Medium using the available import tool. I don’t really agree with Medium’s whole membership, but having it mirrored to a bigger platform will ultimately unlock more reach, hopefully.

This whole layout used to be my main website until I reworked as a full-front blogging site. A slick and fast website just to show I create dope shit on the internet, bla bla bla… And now, I get to use it for my blog.

What I’ve been reading

I don’t really read a concrete book from start to finish nowadays. Now that my friend, is a starking confession…

But! For the past few years I’ve been enamored by the essays of startup founders, the likes of Paul Graham (How to do great work is a personal favorite) and Sam Altman (How to be successful is inspiring as hell). I’ve really enjoyed their writings over the years now. Am I trying to do what they’re doing? Maybe not. I’m not even going to try to sound as eloquent as them. I’m just doing my thing here.

The preach

Let me indulge in this a little bit. I have one or two thing to say about some stuff. I might be going crazy in some of this, so just a heads up: you can skip it via Table of Contents on top of the page.

Where do I start with social media? The backbone of the internet for years now. Algorithms! Advertisers! Yay!

The monoliths of social media platforms - in a way - limits ourselves to express yourself on the internet. While you might argue: “But I can say anything on Twitter!” - Well, what’s it called now? X? What? Where’s my little birdie guy? Where’s my strict 280-character limit? Where’s my old API rate limit?

Oh, man. I can write up some-thousand words of damned TikTok and its effect on this. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts? Are you enforcing us to create short-form videos now? What if I don’t? Will I die in algorithm obscurity? Hell, yes!

I wasn’t around where the MySpace era arrived, but based on what I personally know, you can literally put anything and get discovered there. There were no algorithm, no SEO, just a bunch of nerds on the internet showing cool stuff that they build. Man, I wish I was around when Jai Paul broke out back in 2011…

For me, it’s important to preserve a space just for me in the world wide web. I don’t want to be a part of a specific social media platform, be a “personal branding” influencer, and make dumb content about marketing. I want to carve just a little space for me to exist on the internet. I really can’t let myself be defeated by the algorithmic pressure of constantly showing up just for the sake of being relevant (cue Arriagada & Ibáñez (2020)).

Post-intelligence era

Urgh, aye-eye. AI. ChatJippiti. Sammy Altman & co. of OpenAyeEye tries to build God from scratch in the land of Sillicon Valley…

This whole preach section sounds unserious and sleep deprived now (which I am…) but let me tell you that in this post-intelligence era, the fact that I’m writing a blog sounds kinda useless don’t you think? Why wouldn’t I outsource my thinking into a machine that’ll take our job in the near future? Why not just ask all those greats LLMs to write? Am I even using ChatGPT to write this? (spoiler alert: No.)

In this post-intelligence era, I will stand tall to say that the act of creation is even more of a necessity now. I’m not going to fearmonger or doompost about it, let’s just say this particular inscription is a prelude of a greater essay I’m working on. I have a lot to say about it… You’ll hear it very soon; wink, wink.

What I’ll write about

Pretty much anything that crosses my mind, really. For me, blogging is a way to put whatever it is in my brain into words. It’s an exercise. I’m threading my thoughts using this little blog as a vessel. The keyword is the brain. Offloading my thoughts here is offloading my work, subsequently my thinking. I can’t stress this enough to myself, all of this is not an art form. The blog should serve my thinking, not my feelings.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I have quite the opinion in regards on what I do in internet. I literally create dope shit on the internet (I hope this tagline doesn’t come across in a bad way, hehe). But now, the stakes of having my thoughts showing under my name is real. I’m honestly not too anxious by it, I’m not trying hard for a thinkpiece to pop off or anything. If there’s any feedback or reception - however the tone sounds - I’m just glad that my thinking sparked a small little discourse. It’d be interesting seeing my full blown name put on display if I do say something stupid, though (cue that one Tyler tweet).

I will be writing about creativity, tech, writing, media, culture, music… The whole shabang. Most of the stuff I’m doing will find its way here. Expect unique take from a unique perspective of a polymath creative (in other words: I have a hiperfixation issue). As English is not my first language, expect mistakes here and there from me. Writing in English is a deliberate choice to sharpen my writing while finding my voice. Through years of choking on English, I might actually pull this off. I’m looking forward to write more here!

Endgame

In the future, I’d love to see this little journey of mine in this small space taking place. Seeing my thoughts archived and preserved out beautifully in a little thread in the corner of the internet… Sounds beautiful.

It’s that or I’ll nuke this website eventually after months of inactivity and deep regret of putting my brain on display for the internet. Well hopefully, the former. With my age of 21, I think saying legacy for the purpose of building this blog is such a grandiose thing to say. Hey, I might shitpost in the near future about some new webcomic I found and put it out here to display, and you will have to read it!

You should write

I would encourage everyone - including you - to start writing. I’m sure you’re confused as to what to write. Try to come up with literally anything. Come on, try it!

Pick up a pen. Open up Google Docs. Anything that comes on your mind, jot it down. Maybe it won’t make any sense. Maybe it’ll be bad. But try it, really.

It’s easy saying it now from my part to be fair, right? I’ve been creating stuff my whole life and a blank page is just another blank canvas. It really is, but those many blank canvases set out to be my lifelong work and served me in ways I can’t imagine now.

So yeah, thanks for reading this first one. And, you should just say your shit.