Hypertexts and ill contexts.
words from past futures
I am not a writer. Nor am I a reader– at least not in the conventional sense.
I’ve always been in awe of bookworms, with groaning bookshelves burdened with well worn books devoured multiple times. I probably read everything else in the house though. Because in spite of never having the disciplined intellectualism to read unassigned books on my own regularly, I do read things – situations, relationships, power dynamics – contexts…….and hypertext, lots and lots of hypertext. More on that later.
So I won’t write conventionally either.
Ever since I went to college in the waning years of the 1900s, I always assumed the promise of the cool futuristic sounding “hypertext” ( essentially ‘the web’) meant text in the future would not only be rich with sound and images, linkable and non-linear, but also malleable, editable, forever changing, as thoughts and positions naturally evolved. Alas, like flying cars and world peace, this promised future of living text never came.
This dismally disappointing present expects even more certainty and accountability from text, almost in inverse proportion to its length, now determined to be around 256 characters, the behaviorally self-fulfilling attention span of post 2007 humans. While these tiny, portable text/tweets/threads/“truths” travel the entire world in an instant – easily speakable, repeatable translatable – their writers are somehow held less accountable. These tiny future texts aren’t meaningfully editable. Instead, they are much worse, they are deletable – instantly – as if they, and whatever fleeting conclusion they once held, never existed at all.
Politicians, internet celebs and tech brolords have taught us that your only “truth” is just the last thing you posted, and whatever stays on your grid, feed, or press page. No accountability for past deleted words, stances or actions. No more humility or hypocrisy, just version numbers of your online persona.
In this hyper-capitalized world where every teenager is pushed into becoming their own brand, we’re too concerned about presenting ourselves as an authority. Changing our minds – jumping to the next car on a train of thought – is no longer a sign of intellectual progression or evolution, instead, it’s a weakness. In fact it’s the worst kind of weakness – it’s brand inconsistency.
So yeah I’m not going to do that.
Controversial opinion: It’s a good and necessary thing to publicly change one’s mind. The process of which is often more valuable than your actual latest conclusion.
Like a middle school math teacher would say, we need to show our work.
The “hypertext” I first envisioned at late 90’s Carnegie Mellon wasn’t sprinkled with outgoing links that tore away the attention off the originating piece –that’s what the source citations at the end of the text were for – instead, rolling over underlined text would open a small pop-up of optional detail, context changes, revision history, and yes, sources cited that would open in another window behind the current article (this was before tabs). It showed your work, illustrating how you’ve bumped off other conclusions to reach your current one. More importantly, simply rolling off the text would just close the pop-up and get you right back to the original text that stayed persistently in view - no clicks.
My version of hypertext was expected to be regularly edited – articles would be living, breathing pieces that were time agnostic, as they would continue to evolve along with the writer’s own thoughts on the subject. Instead of bookmarking a time codified article, a frozen slice of time, you would bookmark a forever evolving opinion on a subject, and be able to see exactly how it progressed over time. I actually managed to hobble together my vision of living hypertext on an early version of my first personal website illdefined.com in or around sophomore year. The context being part of the optimistic wild west frontier of the early web, when it was encouraged to be openly curious. Back then, nobody on the web was an authority – everyone was a researcher.
Now in 2025 everyone is an expert. Everyone in 2025 is shouting their opinions with authority, with no or unnamed credentials, receipts, or intellectual work shown – and how the world has suffered for it.
Well, I’m certainly no expert. If I’m an authority on anything it’s only on how to fail regularly. I am terminally curious, and plan to change my mind up until my very last synapse.
Clearly this non–authoritative mindset isn’t rewarded today. Today it’s all about who is the most consistent in their loudness. Appropriately, my humble vision of evolving hypertext never flourished, and I can’t replicate it here on Substack.
All of this longwinded exposition is to say –I will unapologetically revisit anything I write on here whenever my thoughts evolve on a subject. I will try my best to illustrate major edits and thought revisions and republish as thoughts naturally adapt to fluid circumstances. Frankly, in these – yes, exhaustingly unprecedented and ever changing times – I can’t think of a better time to adopt this non-stance stance.
I will edit a LOT. Because I’m definitely not a writer - at least not in the conventional sense.