Following -1998- Page

Following 1998, the world didn't just change. It accelerated.

I don’t want to go back permanently. I like having the sum of human knowledge in my palm. But I miss the silence. I miss the waiting.

Here is the thing I miss most: The naivety.

October 5, 2023

4 minutes

Following 1998, waiting became a glitch. Google was founded in September 1998. The iMac dropped in August of that year—translucent blue plastic promising that technology didn't have to be a beige box in a dusty office. Suddenly, answers were five seconds away. Music fit in your pocket (shout out to the original Rio PMP300). The friction of life was being sanded down.

There is a specific weight to the phrase “the late nineties.” But if you dig deeper, the true hinge—the year everything began to creak before the floodgates opened—was not 1999. It was . Following -1998-

I remember the summer of 1997 vividly. You could be unreachable . If you drove from Boston to Maine, you simply vanished for three hours. No cell signal. No texting “I’m 5 minutes away.” You just... arrived. It felt like magic.

What do you remember from the year before the noise? Let me know in the comments—but I’ll probably reply tomorrow. I’m still in 1997 mode.

I miss when “following” just meant the next page in a book, not a metric of your worth. Following 1998, the world didn't just change

I’ve been digitizing old home videos from 1997 lately. Grainy VHS footage of backyard barbecues, the static hiss of a CRT television in the background, and the sound of a rotary phone ringing. My nephew watched it over my shoulder and asked, “Why is everyone just... waiting ?”

Following 1998, we entered the long now. Everything is recorded, archived, and optimized.