#cohost in memoriam

• Cohost in memoriam: 80 Days in 80 Days

  Posted 10 September 2024 by Natalie

  I fully forgot about this until @authorx reminded me just now, but back in 2022 I ran an 80 Days race called "80 Days in 80 Days" where the conceit was that each player could only spend a single in-game day per real-time day (for a game that's only supposed to take a few hours for a leisurely run). It's not the sort of thing that could only take place on Cohost, but it's the sort of thing where only Cohost would get into it as whole-heartedly as it did. People were emailing me their updates in full character as Passepartout, with @Zandra even sending her updates in French. @RatBaby won the race in only 36 days. We had more than 30 participants, over a third of whom made back to London.

  The website I made is still up, complete with an interactive globe showing everyone's routes and a bunch of fun achievements I came up with. What a lovely little moment that was. Thanks again to everyone who joined me for it.

  1. cohost
  2. cohost in memoriam
  3. 80 days

• ---

  Cohost in memoriam: only carbon now

  Posted 12 September 2024 by Natalie

  On a site that I've seen described as "a retirement home for the greatest posters of our generation"^[1], there's only shitpost that truly shook it to its foundations. It's not my favorite @willow post, it's the only post that went so viral on here that it seemed like the entire website was riffing on it for days afterwards. (not to mention permanently altering my vocabulary). You know it, you love it^[2], it's the obituary for Ryan Reynolds:

  

  willow @Willow4 March 2023

  ---

  oh geez, just heard the news out of vancouver. ryan reynolds was torched to death by a beam of light from the heavens. yeah the report described him as being “only carbon now” which strikes me as a little insensitive but i guess that’s the modern world for you.

  #Ryan Reynolds#he is only carbon now

  ---

  It's actually kind of shocking to me that the phrase "he is only carbon now" doesn't appear as such in the original post, because that's how I (mis)quote it constantly all the time.

  ---

  1. I am at best paraphrasing the quote and at worst lying completely about ever hearting it ↩︎

  2. Or perhaps you are obscurely baffled by it, or even furious at it. I don't know the inner workings of your soul ↩︎

  1. cohost
  2. cohost in memoriam

• ---

  Cohost in memoriam: the friends and family beta

  Posted 14 September 2024 by Natalie

  Look, I know only a handful of people actually experienced this first-hand^[1]. But I think it's worth remembering anyway, because it set the stage for everything that came after. We^[2] joined because we wanted to support our pals and we hoped this could one day really become our fourth website. But we quickly realized that we were actually using Cohost as social media. Most of us came from Twitter—it was still Twitter at the time!—and it was immediately viscerally clear that Cohost was better.

  It had so few features at the time, no one had made any tools for it, and the stylesheets would just refuse to load with distressing frequency. But the posts kept rolling in, jokes and essays and so so much marveling at the unforseen positive effects of not having numbers anymore. I really think this early era both established the culture of the site and helped people understand how and why to spread the word among those who would appreciate it.

  You might say "there weren't enough of those in the end", but I didn't think that's right. I really think given another five years of runway and maybe a payment processor with its head less to its ass, Cohost could have become sustainable. It's not for everyone, but the people it's for love it with a burning passion. These past few weeks have demonstrated that in spades.

  ---

  1. think I read 50 somewhere but I wouldn't swear to the accuracy of that ↩︎

  2. Maybe other people feeling differently, but this is based on my memory of what people were saying at the time ↩︎

  1. cohost
  2. cohost in memoriam