what is sick, sad library?

A repository, a sandbox, an art project, a coping mechanism, a virtual happy place, a commonplace book, a little bit of freedom in an increasingly limited Internet: Sick Sad Library is all of these things and more to me. It's where I stick everything I make as well as all that interests, delights, or inspires me. The Library is, first and foremost, for me, though I hope all who visit enjoy it as well ✮⋆˙

I've never known a world without the Internet. My childhood experience of unmonitored Internet access was (surprisingly) quite positive. I proved to be something of a prodigy at web-surfing. The World Wide Web felt like a place of discovery and creativity at the time. Flash games, fan forums, aggressively colorful Angelfire blogs, trails of links forming infinite trees of knowledge compiled by curious and passionate people... I know it wasn't utopian, nor was it untouched by capitalism. I know my nostalgia must be playing some tricks on me. But perhaps I can create that thing which I'm nostalgic for myself, whether or not it ever truly existed.

Currently, the landscape of Internet-human relations is characterized by a language of surrender, passivity, and decay. "Doomscroll," "brainrot," "terminally online." I don't think it has to be that way. Once upon a time, we had a vocabulary of active participation, discovery, even skill or prowess: "web-surfing," "cybernaut," "netizen." I am ready to exchange the lifeless rot of algorithm-based social media for a cyber-eco-system of creation and curiosity.

To put it more directly:

If I were to post a photo of my dog on Instagram for my friends to see, Meta would make money off of forcing my friends to see ads before and after that photo, and to keep scrolling once they've seen it. Fuck that! I don't want anything I make or share to become a profit generator for some CEO. And, on a more selfish level, if I put a lot of effort into something like an art piece or poem, I'd rather it not be something that people scroll past as part of an endless sea of content. Perhaps the things I create will not reach as many people here, but the people who do see it will have a much more meaningful interaction with it (even if that interaction is "huh. I don't like this at all!")

"why sick & sad?"

The name "Sick, Sad Library" comes from a fictional reality TV show called Sick, Sad World which exists within the universe of the show Daria. We get snippets of Sick, Sad World throughout the series, always with outlandish and absurd soundbites - "H2-ugh! Are microbes having sex in your drinking water?!" Besides simply relating to Daria as a character, the indulgent ridiculousness of Sick, Sad World speaks to me - as Werner Herzog once said about trash reality TV, "the poet must not avert his eyes." I'm by no means a romantic - in fact, I see ugliness everywhere and draw inspiration from it, just as Daria and Jane do when they're writing and painting while SSW serves as their background noise.

Furthermore, you could say I, myself, am both "sick" and "sad." I'm neurodivergent and have struggled with mental illness for most of my life (if you couldn't tell), which colors my experience of everyday life. For me, some of the most mundane tasks can sometimes feel insurmountable. (Sometimes, they really are insurmountable). For as long as I can remember, I've self-soothed by compiling and organizing and re-organizing various lists. Lists of books I've read, books I want to read, movies, music, plants, animals, recipes, words, anything I could think of. Before ever working in a library, I'd become the dedicated librarian of my own interior world, purely as a means of comfort and survival. Now, I'm turning that library into a pocket of cyberspace. Hence: "Sick, Sad Library."