Issue 1: Offlining
Meta-Introduction
Hi! Welcome to the first issue of The Howling Moon Catalog. This is an attempt to give people who feel isolated and helpless in this noisy, raging machine a ladder out of its burning belly. It may not be a good ladder, but I hope, nay, pray that it leads to another person's escape. I love you. I love you so so much, and I hope we can get out of here.
When I saw an exodus from the vile, screeching hell that is Twitter, I got a little worried. When Reddit, a... site, fell apart in pure resistance against ableist pursuits of money, I knew I had to release this now, and not when I finally reviewed the last pair of amish pants.
In the coming years, hopefully, further issues will be unleashed into the cyberwild, with compilations of issues being assembled periodically. Everything on this page is packed into the HTML file, so you're free to save this page without fearing about some vestigial folder polluting your archives.
I'd like to thank MapleYeeter, Vomitdistrict, Fackel, Fiona, Emmett, the contributors of The Whole Earth Catalog, and anyone that was sacrificed to my spotty memory.
Introduction
Do you ever feel like you're trapped in entertainment? These constant, endless streams of action and adventure engineered so that your eyes move as little as possible? These small packets of informational sludge that are optimally sweet, but have a chlorinated aftertaste as you imagine who made them? These ads that know how you love, how you hate, and how you'll die? Do you ever get sick of it all? I got sick of it. I got sick of it years ago.
The problem with quitting a game is, when it has you, it becomes the only game in town. You're so deep into their groove that you can't see anything outside of the ridges. It was a rough climb out, and now I know it's a personal responsibility to give others a boost up.
The methods in this guide are inherently dated. The endpoint of every company is always, always, six feet under. Companies inherently will eat until they burst, so some of the things listed here, at the time of your reading, are now fragments of ribs. It's inevitable. But if you're here, then I know you'll find a way. If I'm around, you can find me. If I'm not, well... you can pick up the pieces. I believe in you.
Part 1: Freezing Your Digital Shadow
I met someone young a few weeks back that didn't know what adblockers were. It was humbling in the same way that dousing an oil fire with water is humbling. It's humbleness with a scar. In the age of apps, the digital natives don't know how to use technology anymore. So, to start, we'll start from nothing.
Firefox is *the* web browser. It's a delightfully robust piece of software with a community of users and developers that actually care about what happens behind the curtain. An important feature to note are extensions. An extension is a small program that changes your web browsing session, ideally, for the better. They can remove advertisements, return the YouTube dislike button, and even identify transphobes. They're wonderful little gizmos.
The web browser is, for most people, their first step in computing. Thus, you have a duty to make the next steps easy. The rest of this section is extensions and settings to make sure you're getting a better, less invasive experience.
HTTPS-Only Mode
Secure, encrypted browsing in 3 clicks
HTTPS is HTTP, the system that's used to send webpages, with added encryption to make it secure. Literally, the "S" in HTTPS literally stands for "Secure", it's not subtle. You can enable it by clicking the three bars on the top right of the screen (affectionately called the "Hamburger" in design communities), then click on "Settings". There's a search bar at the top of the settings screen, and you can type "HTTPS" to search for it. "HTTPS-Only Mode" is what it's currently called. Click the circle next to "Enable HTTPS-Only Mode in all windows", and you should be good.
In settings, you can also turn off data collection to prevent being marketed by your own web browser.
The internet is, first, a way to deliver advertisements; Only third or fourth will you find "Help the person using it". It's truly, truly bleak without an adblocker. Adblockers just... turn off ads. They get them out of there. Sure, some websites have caught onto adblockers and will scold you for using them, but those sites are not worth using anyways. Just click off.
The internet gets a lot quieter when you turn off advertisements, and that's the first step of not getting overwhelmed.
Decentraleyes
Software libraries with no strings attached
The modern internet is built on frontend software libraries, packages of software that show and do the displaying for you, the user. A common part of web browsing is retrieving these libraries, so that the website doesn't break. CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) usually do the heavy lifting, and due to their costs, try to track and sell your data so that they can recooperate the costs. This sucks, and I wish to stress that you shouldn't be made into a product. Decentraleyes packages all of those software libraries into one extension, so you don't have to access these CDNs.
A core part of how companies sell your data is using cookies, little bites of information they collect on you during your web browsing. This is sometimes used to make it seem the website remembers your last visit, and are used to build a more customized experience. Sometimes. A lot of the time, however, they're used to build a better profile on you to sell to advertisers.
This extension deletes them when a tab is closed, making you less marketable to sleazy advertisers.
Other Notable Extensions
You can figure out a lot about a person based on what they think about trans people. They're the subject of the hard-hitting debate of "Do they deserve to live?", a debate that's sadly contentious. This extension colors trans-friendly communities and people with green, and marks transphobes with red. You can adjust the colors in the options if you're colorblind, and you can mark people by right-clicking them.
This extension is sorely needed in the trenches of bad faith discourse, and we hope you can save yourself from that.
One sign that the internet is in complete dysfunction is how long it takes to save an image. Sites have become so hostile that right-clicking is now free territory for them, or otherwise an existential threat. You can't save an image without deleting the layers of invisible junk obscuring it. It's a mess.
Right-Click Borescope makes it so, when you use it, goes through every single layer the cursor is resting on, and displays every image on each layer, giving you an opportunity to save the image you want. It's such a shame that we need this.
The youtube dislike button is a sorely needed facet of web-based expression. This returns it for you, using the extension's own services to implement their own dislike button. We shouldn't need to live in a gated community of digital content, with their own arbitrary house rules and punishments. While we're *currently* stuck with what we have, we can change what little we have before the gates fall apart.
When small websites disappear, we rely on services such as the Wayback Machine, but it doesn't need to be that way. Each and every one of us can be our own digital librarians, saving the sites we love with a few clicks. Singlefile, when used, packages the webpage you're on into one, single file. A place you can save and pass around. If you have a static site you love, save it. You don't know how long it'll last.
Part 2: Entertainment Without Subscription
The world stops when the internet goes out. It reminds us of the fact that our entire social lives, our entire connection to the outside world, is dependent on constant, reliable internet. What can you really do when you're alone? The fact that we can't look, read, or love without a tangled knot of infrastructure is not a universal truth, but a concerted effort by companies to make sure you're renting everything you have. With streaming, you're renting art, and it doesn't have to be that way.
Get a hard drive and a SATA dock right now. Do it. You'll never get to experience your art offline if you have no space for it. A movie is, on average, 2 GB, therefore, you can store nearly 1000 movies on a 2 TB hard drive. Streaming is just downloading the movie to your computer, so don't you want to keep that download? SATA docks can make sure you have a dedicated and extendable place for the things you love; without online-only content, we can, at least in some part, have a world without someone pumping our blood for us.
Torrenting is a means of downloading a file, and then sending parts of it to other downloaders to help them once you're done, known as "seeding". Seeding is not just helpful for others, it's the lifeblood of making sure downloads have no solitary point of failure. You can use this system to get entertainment you couldn't normally get, without having to go through risky sites like Putlocker.
Be sure to, instead of downloading torrents to download, use magnet links. They're URLs instead of files, and thus don't clutter.
Privacy is a human right. This is exemplified where, if you torrent something, a dreaded little envelope is sent to your door. It warns that, if you dare betray Warner Bros, dual gods of thunder and laughter, you'll be struck with a suspension from your internet provider.
VPNs like Mullvad encrypt your web activity and send it to a server located at your choice, hiding your data from the prying eyes of companies.
Public Trackers
Searchable troves of plunder (ADBLOCKER REQUIRED!)
1337X (all-rounder, use with caution)
Using Public Trackers is like using moldy bread to make penicillin. It'll either save you or will give you something that'll HURT.
Use the number of seeders as a general sign of safety, and always, ALWAYS be wary of software and game torrents.
Downloading and Ripping
Youtube will not last. 500 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute. Do you really think that's sustainable? You need to be your own video host, and you first do that by archiving the channels you love.
yt-dlg is a graphical version of youtube-dl, a tool that directly downloads Youtube videos for offline access. Yes, it's as useful as it sounds. If there are issues, go into settings and click "Update". It should work after that.
Compression takes something that's big and makes it small, ideally without making it look terrible. If you compress things properly you can store hundreds of more things, without sacrificing the beauty of those things.
Compression is essential in archiving, and is necessary if you operate on limited storage space.
Part 3: Offlining
Make a goddamn website
Seriously. You can do this.
It doesn't have to look good, it doesn't have to be useful, but please. Make a goddamn website. Static HTML and CSS is all you need. The personal website is a space of self-expression, a shrine to the self, built with text and images and so so much love.
We've been reduced from fully realizable websites, to blogs where you can change the theme, to social media sites where you can change tiny squiggles of text and color. It doesn't have to be this way. A website of your own design gives you opportunities to make organs that God didn't give you, and when you can't make them, a phantom limb can still hurt.
We're at the prelude of a folk renaissance. We truly believe this. Companies collapsing gives way to potential millions of tiny websites made by actual people. Web 1.0 is a community of weird, strong, and beautiful people, and you can join it too.
You are weird enough, you just need to find the words for that weirdness. They're not going to be on the seventy-first weirdcore TikTok compilation.
Sadgrl.online and Mozilla Web Docs are probably the most vital sources of info that I've used in making my website my website. So much useful stuff it's impossible to summarize.
Flexbox.tech is a way to make flexboxes, a feature as useful as it is unintuitive, actually intuitive.
The 3 Steps to Offlining
In offlining your life, you're going to rely a lot on your RSS reader. When you make a social media account, you find the things you love and then immediately drown it in things you only like, to the point where you can't find those lovely things anymore.
RSS feeds are self-made feeds. Compilations of many other websites curated into a slower, more meaningful timeline.
Podcasts, youtube channels, webcomics, and blogs are all excellent contenders.
Buying permanent copies of the music you truly love is the wisest thing you can do in these rickety times. Streaming is exploitative by nature, and there's really nothing topping owning a CD or a vinyl of your favorite artist.
Sure, each album costs money, but that's money the artist actually gets a good chunk of. Beware, though, as Bandcamp is currently owned by Epic Games, a notably terrible company with exploitative work practices.
This... This is the hardest part. Getting rid of the sources of dopamine you're used to is... rough, to understate. You don't need TikTok, you don't need Youtube, you don't need Twitter. If you hate a platform, but feel helplessly attached to it, delete your account.
Export your data from those accounts, and use JustDeleteMe to find the obscure way to actually delete your account. If you're socially or financially attached, use uBlock's Element Picker to get rid of the feed. The feed is what gets you.
For Youtube, go to the sidebar and click history. You can pause and delete your watch history, leaving your advertiser fingerprint far less identifiable than when you started.
I wish you the best. It's hard out there. <3