berg

blue dragon with an art hobby

(Icon by @lugi!)

 

Hi! I draw furries as a hobby, mostly my sona. I also study computer science.

This page hosted stuff I made, my rambles, and the occasional share.
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i'll miss this webbed site


Carrd (collection of my socials)
bergderg.carrd.co/
Itaku (Art Gallery)
itaku.ee/profile/bergdergy

Vecderg
@Vecderg

rant below


i wasn't really sure if i would draw or say anything as a tribute to cohost, but as the end is getting near, i couldn't really just say nothing. yes, i already did a thread on bluesky and a dramatic semi-related rant on my html website, but nothing much on here. it's for multiple reasons, but honestly the main reason is that, understandably, i don't really like appearing vulnerable on public social media websites. there is also a high chance that i'll make others feel awkward or bummed out with these sort of posts, but considering how many of these posts i've seen myself, i thought i might as well talk a bit about how much the site's meant to me.

cohost... hasn't had a massive impact on my life, objectively speaking. i've only met a few people here that i can comfortably say have become my friends, and a handful of others that i can even say i'll stay in touch with. my following was never big enough for any notable impact on any of my projects, other than maybe views on my html website. i can't say that cohost pulled me out of some dark part of my life, or anything serious like that. no, the reason i feel like i'm grieving right now is because of more fundamental reasons.

cohost is one of the very few and first websites that i have ever loved.

never before have i been on a website that i not only enjoyed, but also had creators that were so dedicated and passionate about serving their users in the best way possible. with my time on the internet, there's always a "but." i loved my time on twitter, but it was very unhealthy and eventually became something rotten. i love discord, but the creators had to make a lot of unsavory changes in order to keep profit. cohost does have a "but," but before the end was really coming, it didn't have one. we had a social media platform that was the best social media platform, with no "but"s.

the internet is becoming a more hostile place. this isn't the first time i've said something like this, and i'm not the only person who's said it. i threw on some youtube to listen to music while writing this post, and got a "Single Ladies in your Area" ad as if the site owned by the billion dollar company was some kind of fishy news site from 2 decades ago. every website feels like this now, or even worse.

i remember being able to browse Fandom as one of the most reliable wikis on the internet, and now it's unusable. i remember when the top 10 replies to every popular tweet wasn't flooded by bots. i remember when google's results returned what you wanted without having to default to reddit for every question you had. i remember all these things, and i haven't even been on the internet that long.

and as someone that hasn't been on the internet "that long," cohost made me feel something. it made me feel what it's like to have a website be a community. i logged in daily into a website that cared about me as a person, and the relationships that i would be forming. i don't mean to be dramatic, but that's what it was. every single decision and post made by the staff made that clear.

it was a website that wasn't perfect, but it made me happy. small creators mattered. random people's posts mattered. it was an experiment that, ultimately, worked. it didn't go up in flames that burned the place down. it wasn't a flawed idea that fell apart. it had thousands of regular users, and the only thing in the way of an ethical social media platform that works is more funding. that's not EASY, but it gives me one thought as we all say our goodbyes.

cohost might be ending, but it still feels like the start of something new to me, as cheesy as i know it sounds. when everyone left twitter, that was something that allowed me to branch out to other websites and have more healthy social media habits. similarly, cohost going down has only inspired hundreds of people to seek out websites that treat them better, and some of them to even make those websites.

we have people learning how to do rss, we have amazing smart people looking into the logistics of hosting new websites, there's work on webrings and even a forum. even if none of these things last, everyone here will continue to bring these experiences with them to the new places they go, and i know that's something that will matter.

with that said, there are important things i have to say once again.

thank you, genuinely and truly, for everyone that supported and interacted with anything i posted here. it's been very appreciated, and you all have made me feel like my time here mattered.

if you want to continue supporting me, i have many websites i've moved on to. i updated my carrd to hopefully make it easier to navigate all my links: https://vecderg.carrd.co/

i will always be at my main website, which has essentially everything: https://www.vecderg.com/

currently, i expect BlueSky to be my "home," but that may change depending on how the site goes: https://bsky.app/profile/vecderg.bsky.social

and for those with RSS, my html/github website (https://vecderg.github.io/) will have the RSS feed on the front page, currently: https://vecderg.github.io/feed.xml

thank you very much for reading.

extra notes:

  • normally for my drawings, i try to avoid using eyedropper tool as a way to get better at colorpicking. however, this is a rare instance where i took the exact RGB values of cohost's colors, since they're iconic and i like them. everything outside of ube uses the exact colors cohost uses.
  • the mask is something i often leave out of ube's design now, but against my expectations, i used the exact same pfp on cohost for almost my entire stay here (for reference, i change my pfp on discord almost every week). it's largely because this is the only site that supports SVG animated pfps, so i wanted to keep that here. notably, this is the -only- website where i've represented myself as ube for the majority of my stay.
  • cohost going down will be the second change that breaks the kyle2023 ARG, since one of the steps includes a cohost link. the other change was a discord download link being broken (that's on me) and ever since twitter made logged-out users unable to see replies, that section is unsolvable if you don't have a twitter account. i'm considering either updating the ARG to be different, or discarding the project entirely, instead linking it directly to the answer sheet.
  • i'm unsure where i'll talk about conlangs anymore, other than articles on my main website / RSS posts. there is still a lot i have to say and learn on the subject.

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in reply to @Vecderg's post:

this describes a lot of my experiences here, too.
i didn't do as much as i°d like, but i was overall pretty glad at how easy it felt to just leave comments and interact and such on here

i forgot to mention it but it's a bit unfortunate how often i've seen people regret not using cohost more, especially as someone who tried to get all my friends into cohost (90% of them never used it past the first week lol)

i'm happy you enjoyed your time here tho, and i've had the impression you've been around for a fair bit