2025 Semi-Manic, Halfway Incomprehensible 2025 Year End Review

#2025 Year End Review:

Early 2025: I started to get started doing more with ASLWrite this year after being introduced to the typing font and after receiving some handwritten text messages.

Mid 2025: I'm given some worksheets created by a friend. They start to get me jazzed up

Late 2025: I have a poem in ASLWrite published for the first time.

October 2025: I decide to post in the Facebook group, a place I lurk with happiness.

Nov 1st 2025: I discover I can't post - no one can. Facebook has nerfed the admin, who had post approval on, and massive amounts of language archives are wiped out.

Nov 15 2025: The nuked admin, an original founder starts slwrite.org to migrate the function of facebook. People start to slowly join.

Nov 17 2025: I begin to get concerned that without public access long time lurkers like me won't grow the confidence and interest to try things. People need to watch sometimes before trying. Without that it might end up an insular community where the language gains will not be accessible to others working on ASLWrite.

November 17 (to present):

I begin to ruminate on the potential loss and premature death of ASLwrite.

I obsess about getting more people into the group.

I search for others online, including original founders to see if they're still working on anything. I can't find much of anything, even a body of history I know existed once.

I notice the wikipedia page has a suggested delete because there aren't enough sources. Things I know about the creation and split of si5 because I have read them now can't be proved because many of the sources have been deleted or personal evidence buried under mounds of information. A lot of what I knew is fading from memory.

I lament on the loss of work and wonder how much out there has just disappeared since there is no place to catalogue it.

I can't shake the danger of a platform going down on a tenuous body of materials. Language survives by its mass of materials; Much of (but not all) ASLWrites accessible materials were in the FB group and now that development would be behind a join wall (totally free, go join) that might discourage people from improving their writing and creating more materials by writing on their own time.

I become more aware of the danger of information and direction being concentration in few (if dedicated) hands. I notice many of the original people working on it seem no longer active (at least on the internet). If the 2-3 I can verify are active quit (or die) with no one to pass the baton to, what happens?

Mid Nov: that friend of mine discusses starting their own ASLWrite page so their own stuff doesn't disappear and so what they do in the slwrite.org group can be more accessible.

Nov. 20: I decide that more than one person needs to be visibly and publicly active and work needs to be archived so that people can find whats spread out across the vastness of the internet and so history has a tiny fighting chance. I revive an old email.

Nov. 21: I start a reddit r/. I make it clear people need to go to slwrite.org and that I'm not an expert.

Nov. 21: Reddit immediately creates and nukes the reddit as against guidelines. I can't find any guideline its against. My fear of a single platform being able to destroy documentation and activity, which eventually becomes history, increases.

Nov. 21: An r/ on reddit complains about the insta bans and sends me to lemmy on the fediverse. I do hours and hours of research on the fediverse, unsure its its a good replacement.

Nov. 21: Out of irritation and determination I start a MeWe. I had found it years ago but only now remembered it existed. I fret MeWe will nuke the group I created too so I don't post yet.

Nov. 21: I spend a couple of hours educating myself on the fediverse and browing the groups. I realize instances can be unstable since someone running a server can decide to just quit.

I believe the fediverse is the best place to have the kind of reddit I wanted, since if an instance doesn't want it there I can join a different instance. But I want something that might have a shot at longevity. I also tell myself that if the instance fails, at least maybe information will be sitting in a landfill somewhere, waiting to be discovered by historians. I apply to a huge instance and wait to be approved.

Nov. 21: I decide to try other platforms, thinking the fediverse is probably a bust and MeWe will probably kill my group like reddit did, but am unsure where to start. I have a clearer vision now of what I'm trying to achieve. It will be part archival of any publicly available material, part sharing of what is shareable behind walls, and part me working on my own stuff with giant caveats, with the biggest goal of pushing people to the slwrite.org group.

Nov. 21: I start a bluesky. I figure I will use it to put vocabulary words and collate links of existing work as I find it. I create my first post, convinced I'm going to end up a

Nov. 22: My friend sends me the song "I hope that you forget about your Myspace" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avxpn_MsPYs and realize that not only is everything from that era gone, never to be retrieved, FB is the current embodiment of that song, and it has no problem nuking critical sociocultural documentation and history, so longevity of a platform doesn't mean preservation of information, and longevity can be stolen at any moment.

Nov. 22: I do hours and hours of fediverse digging. I realize I might never be approved for the large instance.

I apply for a writing group instance, but realize that the admins might not get around to approving me and am concerned that a thread there that the admin would accept would have to be very very limited.

I apply to another instance that had been catching my eye over and over. The admin very clearly explains how they back up the instance and seems to do regular updates. I apply and wait.

I stop applying for instances because I don't want to get banned for spam.

Nov 23: lol the third instance I applied for let me in. I am thrilled, excited with a hint of trepidation, and embarrassed by my dramatic lack of patience.

Nov. 23: I create my group and my first post on the lazy social instance and pray the owner won't bounce it like reddit did.

Nov. 23: I make my first post on MeWe. Nov. 23: I make my first post on lazy social fediverse

Nov. 25: I am approved for the writing instance in the fediverse. I wait a few days and make a group. I don't post in it for fear wit won't see ASLWrite as legitimate since all of the practice will be basic and there is no main literature; I don't want to be seen as spam. Nov 30: I make my first post in the writing instance.

December 1: Now convinced I need to diversify in hopes some harddrive survives somewhere as entropy inevitably eats social media I make a tumblr. I have no idea what I am doing. I discover a few bits of ASLWrite on Tumblr and realize that there must be many more places where fragments exist and strongly feel that there should be easier places to find these.

December 1-7: I realize tumblr has ASLWrite material (not a lot but enough) that I never found. Its important stuff to archive. I start scheduling posts.

December 2: I make a snapchat. I have no idea how to use a snapchat. I harass a friend to help me understand the complete mystery that is snapchat.

December 2: I'm on a roll now deciding to make accounts left and right. I realize I can't keep track of anything. I have already forgotten I have a MeWe. I decide to make a linktree.

December 3: I make a Chirp (chirp.me) instead. I found it through Peet Montezingo and like that I can do different layout things that I can't do on linktree. The promise of payment is nice but I'm pretty sure I'd have to be famous to make more than ten cents a month.

December 4th: I make a youtube. I put nothing on it.

Dec. 5th: I decide to get an Ao3 after Tumblr enlightens me it has an ASL category. I have no idea how to make it work.

Dec. 6th: I have been struggling with how to archive and preserve for the public the broadly scattered work in ASL, especially from founders and early interveners. I don't know what I can reshare from the fb group since its publicly available but I can no longer ask most of them if its ok to download and reshare as defense against facebook eating stuff. I don't want to step on original creators who work hard for their platforms, but can see if something happens to them (car crash, life circumstances, death) alot of work goes up in the air, poof. I am afraid to ask for permission and I am afraid to put anything up without it. I don't know how to do centralized and then mirrored preservation activities for the public (if I die what good does it have to have it set to private?) and still be respectful of d/D/HH/HI (yes HI is politically incorrect but thats what I and countless friends identify with) creators, who have had their agency hijacked as a matter of course before even being born. I still fret over this, and haven't figured it out.

Dec. 11th: I apply for an Ao3, having decided I can write the English underpinnings (which look like keyboard smashes) and give instructions how to turn it into ASLWrite.

Second half of December; ao3:

I write stuff for ao3 and read documentation while I wait to be let in. I am approved for ao3. I put a test document up immediately. I discover the ASL category is flooded with English. I find the original ASL works (which are awesome) but there are buried and I can't find any others. The documentation tells me I can apply to have the tags change. I decide to make an album so it would be easy for moderators to find. I start reading all the fanfic in that category to make sure I don't accidentally report something that belongs there and download it so I can upload it to a collection later. I am impressed, I am confuddled, I am horrified, my head explodes, I am amused; I am impressed again; I am scarred and choose not to download some things because I don't want to go on a list. But mostly I'm super irritated. I've combed through almost 100 pieces and none of them even have the remotest mention of signing.

I start commenting on old stories asking them politely if they will change the tag. I start doing this to new stories.

I'm working on a chapter for my story and realize that I can put an image of the ASLWrite. I have to find a place to park the image.

December ?: I go to the fediverse and pray the mod has the patience to host the pic for a03 and won't delete it since its on content for my fediverse group. I can't imagine it will ever get a bothersome amount of traffic.

Second half of December a03: I'm super glad I'm reading everything because I find a piece partially written in GLOSS. This is amazing. I feel sheepish I was already gearing up to ask them to change the language, growing tired and deciding not to read as much anymore.

However now I'm even more annoyed. I only saw that one as a fluke and everyday stories come in mistagged and its pushing that story off the front. I comment even more vigorously; some people change the tag some people don't. I become obsessed with reading works. My brain starts to fray. I can't keep up. A03 starts marking me as spam. I have to come up with a comment system to keep from getting marked as spam. I am proud to see I've kept the third ASL piece (the other two being the originals that sparked the category). The category still floods. I'm checking my email all the time. I'm reading pieces all day. I'm carefully crafting comments. I'm hardly posting anywhere. I've lost the thread of archiving or doing anything else. I forget I have a dog, a wife, kids, a job. I actually may or may not have any of these but ao3 has consumed my entire existence. Tumblr is on autopilot, MeWe is neglected; anywhere I do post its out of sheer obligation and mostly about a03. I'm not looking for any work to archive, creating anything that doesn't have to do with Ao3, or posting educational materials unless I begrudgingly drag myself away and force myself

Dec 29: I realize my obsession with ao3 is out of controlling and distracting me from my original goal. I put in a ticket with ao3 and ask them about the ASL category. I volunteer to be a mod. This way I can use their process, change the language tag if they're ignored (especially for orphaned work), not feel like I'm spamming, and make room for what I actually want to do. I obsessively check my email to see if they've responded even though I know it could take months.

Dec 30th: I otherwise take a break from ao3 and begin to prepare videos to be posted on youtube and snapchat. My goal for youtube is January 1st.

Dec 31, 11:59 pm: I have made 69 cents on chirp me, most of those me trying to navigate out to my own accounts. I am clearly going to be rich.

January 1st: I make a year in review post. Its took long and I give up on trying to find exact dates or editing. I leave out a lot of things and cut my losses. I decide its time hit post in MeWe and the fediverse, close out 2025 and open 2026 by working on getting those videos up.

Here's to a new year.