After All These Years, Let's Try Something New

Calm down, I'm not quitting. Quite the opposite, actually.

My friend Rolando was witness to me trying to create the correct image prompt in ChatGPT and then double-dogg-dared-me to keep this hilariously awkward first pass as the official post illustration. YOUR MOVE, ROLANDO.

Part 1: The Hook

I had just been laid off from my second internet startup, Trend Micro. "This is the worst time in my life," I said a WHOLE MONTH BEFORE 9/11—but I wouldn't have known that because I was smack dab in my quarter-life crisis.

My two internet friends, Choire¹ and Philo—bless their hearts—decided to start something they called "Ernie-Aid," a virtual telethon to help, and I quote. "starving Gaysians in need."

ddnErnie-Aid, circa August 2001. via the Internet Archive.

Let's just get one thing out of the way: Ernie-Aid is a roast. "Oh NooOOoO, you poor, unemployed computer programmer!! How will he afford his JAVA LATTE!?" And then it links to a Macromedia Flash whack-a-mole game, except you're pegging an avatar version of me with dollar bills as I hold a copper cup.

But it was a half-legitimate fundraiser as well. Mutual friends wrote me testimonials as if I were a puppy up for Death Row, and Sarah McLaughlin was singing in the background.

I swear I didn't put them up for any of this.

The whole thing brought in around $1000, which in 2024 is roughly "enough for one month's rent in the Bay Area." Back then, it covered my share of rent when my stoner roommates couldn't come through. The internet was different then, so the idea of fundraising exclusively on the internet was novel. The whole event made a cameo in USA Today.

The article was less about my job loss itself —thousands of people were laid off regularly—and more about the blogging community as a whole. We made friends by clicking through blogrolls, leaving lengthy comments, and somehow building real communities around our shared stories.

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Part 2: The Journey

I've been at this writing thing for a minute. Not that my parents would have any idea.

I started writing as a hobby in college, writing for IIstix, an Asian American webzine, in the '90s. It was the first time I talked publicly about a family member's mental illness. It lifted some of the burden off my chest. I then stumbled into blogging at exactly the right time and place. While everyone else was writing about RSS feeds and web standards, I was sharing stories about my Asian mom and weird work encounters. My college friends were already getting these emails anyway—might as well make it public, right?

So I blogged a little bit, and I was super fortunate; people seemed to really resonate with what I had to write or something.

You're reading the newest incarnation of that same impulse to share stories. My original blog was hosted on blogger.com in 1999, and it went through a couple of software platforms, including Tumblr, Medium, and now this newsletter. I've kept writing, even if less frequently. Because here's the thing:

At 47 — fuck my life, I'm 48 in a month — I still have things to say.

These are different things than when I was 24, sure, but the need to express myself and connect hasn't gone away. Twenty years after Ernie-Aid, I'm feeling that same itch to rebuild something.

Lately, I've been thinking about rebuilding that momentum. The past couple of years have been more about consuming than creating, and burnout can do that to you. They say, "Writing is thinking," and honestly, I could use both.

Here is where I am now: I'm ten months into a job search in the Bay Area, there are no leads, and I'm starting to try to come up with ideas to generate more income. At least I'll have somewhere to write about it, right?

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Part 3: The Ask

Which brings me to the point of this post: I'm opening up this newsletter for donations.

Here's the deal: for $5 a month (the minimum Substack allows) $8², you get access to the following:

• The complete newsletter archives

• Original blog posts from the early days (yes, I kept them)

• A subscriber chat for... whatever our demographic uses chatrooms for these days. Look: either it becomes a fantastic support group, or we risk violating Substack's Terms of Service. We'll find out together.

Why $8? Hey, maybe you're friends with me and just want to support this writing habit. This is your chance! The regular newsletter stays free - consider this an optional tip jar with some perks attached.

Maybe we can't fully recreate the early 2000s when we all found each other through random blog links. But perhaps we don't have to settle for anything, either. Let's see what we can build here.

PS: And if you're one of those original Ernie-Aid contributors, no, this isn't a second fundraiser. But also, thanks. That rent money really came in handy. Maybe it's time to build something new together again.

1. Oh, man. That Choire guy was a hoot. I wonder what happened to him.

2. So yeah, it turns out when I turned on pricing the first time it said $5, and then when it turned it on the second time it became $8. And I was going to change it back to $5 but then a bunch of people starting paying at $8 and I was like “hey, that wouldn’t be too fair to those people and…” let’s just go with $8. Cool? Cool.