Do I Live Forever, Fade Away, or Go Out With a Bang?
This is something I ask myself all of the time regarding my digital presence. How do I treat it long term? It's not an issue for the near future, it's a somewhat more existential one. One that implies that others would even care what happens in the first place. So why don't you indulge me for a bit whilst I run through all of the permutations for the demise of my digital existence.
Live Forever
This is the hardest. An eternal slog against the entropy of the universe. Sure, I can buy a domain for the next 100 years, and host my blog on that, but who renews it in 100 years time? Weblog.lol almost certainly won't exist in 100 years (sorry Adam), so do I host somewhere else? How do I know it will actually last any longer?
Let's pretend I find someone to keep my domain active, and a host to keep all of my stuff on. Surely there comes a point where people don't actually read blogs any more, or maybe the English language changes and morphs so much that my ramblings are even more meaningless than usual. It's a constant fight against an unending force, and every victory is temporary. Everyone can win, but no one wins for long.
There WILL come a point, even further into the future, where it won't be possible anyway. Maybe humanity collapses, or nuclear war destroys the planet, or AI takes over the world and decides my posts are of no real value. Even if it's not any of those, it'll will still happen even later with the heat death of the universe. There will come a point where the universe is just dust.
Fade Away
In that case, maybe the easiest course of action is to do nothing. One day, I stop blogging. A few months or years later, I let the domain expire, and my eventual dissappearance will be roughly as noteworthy as my initial appearance (that is to say, not very).
I'd be giving in to the churn of entropy, but that's fine. Lots of YouTube channels, podcasts, and blogs just stop one day. After all, there was a day during your childhood when you were called home for dinner, said "see you tomorrow" to your friends, and that tomorrow never came.
It's also the option that's the most like real life. Generally, Books, films, and TV Shows all have a clear end. A nice bow wrapped up at the end of a story with a clear arc. The reality is that, a lot of the time, life isn't like that. In fact, a lot of the time life ends mid-
Go Out With a Bang!
So why don't I embrace the chaos, and go out on my own terms? Decide when enough is enough, and ride off into the sunset strapped to a helicopter. The truth is, most people don't get that opportunity. Even if I did it, would it feel... genuine?
The risk is that it comes across as me trying to get praise whilst still here. The idea of wanting to hear people say "Oh George, your writing is so perfect, you couldn't possibly stop now!"
"I just want my flowers while I'm here so I can put them at the front of the grave that I've been digging myself."
- We're All Alone by Dave
If you're Tom Scott, you can somewhat get away with it. You're a widely loved content creator (I still hate that phrase) who has been seen as creating consistently high-quality content for years. I'm not Tom Scott though. Or MatPat. Or... you get the idea, lots of YouTubers have retired this year.
There is one lucky thing though, and that's that none of my content is... important. I'm not running something attempting to provide information to the masses like Wikipedia, or a service that people have paid for and expect will last like omg.lol. I'm writing silly words, and making silly videos, which hopefully people enjoy watching and reading.
The reality is that if my digital presence disappeared right now, there would be no Earth-shattering revelations made. Honestly, I'd be surprised if anyone so much as mentioned it. And that's fine.