I often think that I have written for as long as I have read–which feels like always.
When I was seven years old, newly moved to the UK for a one year stint before we returned to Germany, I wrote a short story about finding a genie in our family shed that I was asked to read in front of the whole school.
I awkwardly (yet with enviable confidence) wrote blog posts on rudimentary self-coded websites, LiveJournal, Blogspot, tumblr and played text-based, old school RPGs on Lord of the Rings fan forums–constantly enamoured (but often also exasperated) at the closeness of words, a way to fuse with others in a world that felt hostile.
I graduated into writing for Goldsmiths University student magazine, later attended fashion weeks which I reviewed, and interviewed designers for an independent magazine. One of my proudest pieces in recent years was an article for another independent magazine on the COVID-19 pandemic and what it meant for people dealing with family estrangement.
There has always been a part of me that has known that I must continue my writing, earnestly. Pony Express 24 is a low pressure environment to facilitate this, with a focus on my key area of academic and personal interest: the internet.
Any audience welcome!
The phrase ‘disciple of the internet’ doesn’t quite capture my feelings towards the World Wide Web, but it comes close. Without it, I simply wouldn’t be who I am today, and I am at a loss to imagine how I would have survived many of the unfair, unjust and painful times in my life had it not been for the education, community and hope provided through the various screens of my adolescence.
Without falling into a trap of clichéd commentary on social media, I want to primarily use this space to explore areas of internet culture that fascinate me the most: YouTube (my favourite online platform), the notion of internet celebrity–my first loose idea for an ongoing series being an examination of MrBeast.
From close readings of dialogues taken directly from his videos, to examining a single screenshot the way we might approach a still life painting–I want to explore the expansiveness of MrBeast’s work and what it can teach us about the internet, ourselves and our late capitalist world.
What of the name, Pony Express 24?
Pony Express is the name of an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders to connect the American West with the rest of the country in the 19th century, discussed in one of my favourite books: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1966). This book is broadly about mass media and communication (among many other things)–written long before the dawn of the internet.
The 24 references the year of this project’s inception.
It is important to mention that I currently work in a partner-facing role at YouTube in the UK. However, my fascination with the platform and its creators started long before I got this job.
I must stress that the desire to write about the internet is a personal endeavour, unrelated to my work. All opinions expressed here are my own.
You have a way with words my friends, excited to be on this journey ✨