These digital gardens, rooted in the trippy hypertext garden concept, are like personal websites or online spaces where you can plant, nurture, and share your thoughts and creations.1 It’s like having your own cozy cabin in the woods, but for your mind—a place to escape the endless scroll and cultivate your own intellectual jungle.
Why Virtual Greenhouses Are the Vibe
In a world of curated feeds and algorithms that low-key tell you what to think, virtual greenhouses are a breath of fresh air. They’re a place where you can ditch the noise, be your authentic self, and connect with other peeps who get your vibe.2 It’s like having your own private island where you can finally escape the FOMO and focus on what matters to you.
Digital gardens are all about cultivating ideas, connecting thoughts, and leveling up your personal growth. It’s a space to experiment, question everything (like, is water wet?), and evolve into the intellectual baddie you were born to be.
And let’s be real, they’re also just a fun way to explore the internet. You can wander through a maze of interconnected ideas, following hyperlinks like a trail of digital breadcrumbs. It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure for your brain, but with less risk of being eaten by a grue.
Hypertext Gardens: The OG Inspiration
The whole virtual greenhouse thing is actually based on this mind-blowing idea called the hypertext garden, which was dreamed up by Apple Computer hypermedia pioneer Bill Atkinson back in the day.3 This dude imagined the internet as a massive garden where ideas are connected through hyperlinks, so you can wander around and discover new info in a totally non-linear way. It’s like a scavenger hunt for knowledge, but way more chill.
**The Dark Forest: The Shady Side
But hey, not everything’s sunshine and roses in the digital realm. Remember that Hunger Games energy online? Everyone’s vying for attention, trying to be the next big influencer or whatever. It’s kinda like the “dark forest theory,” where everyone’s low-key paranoid and hiding in the shadows to avoid getting attacked or exploited.4
Virtual greenhouses aren’t immune to this dark forest vibe. If you’re not careful, your personal oasis could become a target for trolls, hackers, or just plain old idea thieves. Even Maggie Appleton compared generative AI to a dark forest where models are fighting for resources and dominance.5 Yikes! So, yeah, it’s important to be aware of the risks and protect your digital garden like it’s your firstborn.
Balancing Act: Openness vs. Protection
The key is to find that sweet spot between sharing your awesome thoughts and creations with the world and protecting yourself from the internet’s dark underbelly. Virtual greenhouses can actually help you do both. You get to curate your own space, choose who you share it with, and control how much of your personal info is out there.
Think of it like having a finsta (fake Instagram) where you can post your weirdest thoughts and memes without worrying about judgment. It’s a safe space to be yourself, try new things, and connect with your people.
So, are virtual greenhouses the next big thing? Who knows? But even if they’re not, they’re still a rad way to create your own little haven in the vast expanse of the internet. Just remember to stay safe, protect your privacy, and don’t click on any suspicious links. You don’t want to end up as clickbait for some shady algorithm.
- your cyborg girl, alta :)
Footnotes
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- Anne Hammond, “The Digital Garden as a Metaphor for the Internet,” First Monday 12, no. 11 (2007).
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Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). ↩
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Bill Atkinson, “HyperCard,” Byte 13, no. 8 (1988): 227-239. ↩
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Cixin Liu, The Dark Forest (New York: Tor Books, 2015). ↩
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Maggie Appleton, “The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI” (2023). ↩