Here is my eulogy and retrospective for Cohost. I redrafted this tens of times and decided it was finally just time to post it. I am only posting it to my blog/newsletter to encourage you to go visit my new site and subscribe to my RSS feed/newsletter there, and leave comments there. I want to stay in touch with you and keep having conversations together.
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in reply to @shel's post:
Thoughtful as always. It's always been a pleasure to read your writing over the last couple of years.
The early cohost and pre-cohost history is interesting, things I sure didn't know.
One thing I only really realized quite recently is how how many of the early users and staff knew each other from before and in-person. In my life, the only place online I see anyone I've actually met in person at all, and all the people I've spent real time with, is Facebook (it was Livejournal in the old days, then everyone moved to Facebook). Tumblr, Twitter, masto, cohost, those are all people I've never seen in person, have no relationship with outside of sometimes commenting on each other's posts. It was easy to forget that other people didn't have to end up with 100% of in-person friends being Facebook-only!
few things I wanna add, but pls note I'm Malaysian, not sure if any of this applies to Singapore:
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"indeginous Malay minority" is a strange sentence to hear as a Malaysian, sometimes I forget Malays are the minority in that Singapore.
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I indeed do not have Malay close friends. Chinese and Indians communities are much closer than Malays. if you're Chinese you likely mostly have Chinese and Indian friends.
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sure Malays are indigenous compared to the Chinese, but I'm not sure about using that word. when I see indigenous I think of indigenous races before Malays, which I am unfortunately not familiar with.
ok sry for yapping
The Singaporean constitution recognizes ethnic Malays as the indigenous population of the island of Singapore.
Part XIII, General Provisions, Minorities and special position of Malays, section 152:
The Government shall exercise its functions in such manner as to recognise the special position of the Malays, who are the indigenous people of Singapore, and accordingly it shall be the responsibility of the Government to protect, safeguard, support, foster and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language.
I think they're doing a rhetorical move here where they are saying that Malay people were the first to settle the island of Singapore, not the Malaysian peninsula. Which sort of reasserts their position as "Not Malaysia" in a way that also recognizes Malay people as "Innately Singaporean" (not "Malaysian" but "Malay Singaporean") so there's some national-identity-building going on.
Singapore was ejected from the Malaysian federation partially because it was the only part of the country where Malay people are the minority (also.... race riots against Malay people )
(nothing to comment cause I don't know much about Singapore. it's interesting listening to you talk about Singapore, partially because it's an alternate version of my own country, partially due to your perspective as an outsider)
I find it interesting because it's like Mirrorverse United States in many ways. It's a former British Colony but where the US chose A, Singapore chose B, in nearly every instance
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