A happier place.

Something that always inspired me ever since I was very little was the idea that every single thing I liked was created by other people. I'd be gifted some bootleg Superman toy figure at like 4 years old and wonder "huh, why is his outfit the wrong color? that's a decision someone had to make - so why did they make it?"

I had a collection on CD of over 3000 Arcade ROMs, my introduction to gaming and to this day some of my favorite games of all time are featured in this very collection. I would often wonder "who are the people who went through the effort of making these games?" I was always fascinated by credit sequences in movies and games. Me being a native Spanish speaker those names would often be unpronounceable, but I was curious nevertheless.

I'm not sure why I was always so fascinated by the behind-the-scenes and the creative process, but I think the following might help explain why; I discovered the statistic, somewhat embarrassingly late in my life, that 90% of all humans live in the northern hemisphere of the planet. Due to the phenomenon of continental drip, the countries of the southern hemisphere are very much apart from each other. I happen to have been born in Uruguay, a small nation in between Brazil and Argentina of only some 3.8 million people.

I think my fascination with authorship, or knowing who made what, comes from wanting to try and connect with people.

Uruguay being a country where very few people live, in a part of the world where only 10% of the human race lives, is something that kind of permeates in its societal fabric and culture in ways that are sometimes unexpected, but ultimately always profound. It's hard to draw comparisons when this is how I've lived all my life, but it sort of feels like living in a post-apocalyptic movie. There's very few people, very few resources, and sadly all of that ultimately means that there are less meaningful connections with other humans to be made. Being born here means facing on a daily basis an overwhelming sense that you will never reach your full potential in any subject you're passionate about, or blaming that during your childhood you didn't have opportunities presented to you that would have helped you expand your worldview and turn you into a better adult.

But I've developed Stockholm syndrome over the years.

It is one of the safest places in South America with some degree of economic success while maintaining some very progressive policies. While we have such few people, the talent we have is completely disproportionate. A country with this few people in this part of the world has no right being this comfortable of a place to live in, with such celebrated artists who have found incredible international success, and I think that ultimately speaks to some rather positive qualities present in Uruguayan society, in spite of, or maybe because of, the situation those of us born here have had to face.

Growing up as a kid in the 2000s within this cultural context; the Internet was utter mind-destroying crack.

I could see stuff made by anyone, from anywhere. Talk to anyone, from anywhere. See different parts of the world through the eyes of people with completely different life experiences than the ones I had. All of this knowing that nobody would ever come to my house and try to hurt me, for I functionally lived on an island far away from the rest of humanity. As a kid I spent most of my time online reading about video game history, watching animations, going through long discussions on forums.

That never really stopped. Even as I entered adolescence, one of the only things that would comfort me was seeing other people online. Reading about what they cared about. Seeing the art they made. Seeing people help each other.

But sadly that is not what my experience with the Internet is like these days. Social media platforms now reward the more unsavory parts of the human experience. Negativity, quippy lines, censorship, meaningless sexualization, theft. A phenomenon that has recently made me use Twitter less is that it started pushing "last tweets" of people, that is - before they succumbed to suicide or terminal illness - onto my feed.

They say that as one ages, one looks back to their childhood with happiness, for it was a time in which they were blissfully unaware. But I'm not sure how true that is. I feel I was happy because the Internet just genuinely used to be a happier place.