misc.md

Let Me Tell You About Allpoetry...

Allpoetry.com is a website where you can draft and upload your personal poetry to share with others on the website. Its entire existence is about sharing, commenting, and liking personal poems. Now, what makes it so special to me?

The year was 2006...

I was 15 or 16 at the time. My parents abhorred the idea of my having a Myspace profile on which I could I get into secret cyber shenanigans with with friends. And pedoforks. They were certain I'd fall in love with a pedofork. These were the days of To Catch a Predator and babyboomers were certain that their offspring, who were ironically more tech-savvy than they, would fall prey to some 40-something with a ponytail, serial-killer glasses, and a white van. 

Not saying that this never happened. But they probably should have been more concerned about our certain teachers and church members. I'm just saying.

Anyway, like many public schools, my high school network didn't allow access to Myspace from its computer system. Therefore, I had no way in hell to sign up and build my own profile. Much to my angsty chagrin. 

Like any self-respecting teenager at the time, I would improvise. Where there's a will, there's a way. My parents wouldn't let me purchase clothes from Hot Topic. Therefore, I used Walmart tees purchased with my allowance, random pieces of goth jewelry I found, and Dad's old flannels and law school vests to become something like Your Friendly Local Equate Alt Girl.

I applied the same logic to social media. If I couldn't do what everyone else was doing, I'd still do something. I searched for free websites where I could create an account while in the school library. Pretty sure this was one of the days where I forged a teacher's signature on my standard-issue agenda to skip class and fuck around. 

I discover Allpoetry that day. It was...perfect. I kept several spiral-bound notebooks filled with poetry and collages. Matter of fact, these notebooks probably looked more like a serial killer's manifesto of threats rather than a school girl's inner musings about crushes, not fitting in, being misunderstood, and other hardships of teenaged hell. 

It was simple - all I needed was an email address and a password. Unfortunately, most email providers were blocked as well. A dear friend of mine kindly lent me hers until I could get one of my own. 

So I made my first social media account on Allpoetry.com. I would keep this account until well into college before I either abandoned or deleted it. I kinda wish I still had it. It was years of writing tossed out the window. 

Why you, dear reader, might like it...

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND DON'T TOUCH THAT REMOTE!

ARE YOU A FAN OF:

- WRITING POETRY?

- READING POETRY?

- RETRO WEBSITES?

DO YOU HATE THE STINK OF ALGORITHMS AND ADS?

ALLPOETRY CAN MAKE ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE! 

No, seriously. It looks like it's still very much a thriving community, and little has changed in over 20 years. The navigation and interface looks very much the same. Plus, you can enter site contests and groups. You might even have your work featured on the front page.

It's refreshing to see that some places haven't changed much at all, despite the constant passing of time. And Allpoetry.com is the genuine article. Give it some love if your into the idea.