“La Casa Tomada” (The House Taken Over) is a story written by the great Julio Cortázar. It tells the story of a couple of brothers who live alone in a large house that strangely begins to be “taken” by something immaterial and Ominous. It is never known what exactly it is that “takes” the house, it is only known that little by little the brothers “can not” enter certain rooms, not because they are closed or blocked, they simply “can not”. I am not going to tell the ending so that those who have not read it can look it up and read it on their own.
Cortázar wrote the story in the context of a dictatorship in his home country, Argentina. It is impossible not to see a parallel between the story and Cortázar’s situation then, living abroad, unable to return home because it has been “taken”.
Since all this “digital migration” started in several networks, I have not been able to stop thinking about “La Casa Tomada”, in how it seems that little by little the digital spaces we inhabited have been “taken” and now we “can not” to be in them anymore. There are several factors that are causing this: the shittification, the rise of reactionary ideas, the bots and AI, the increasingly intrusive advertising, all an abominable and amorphous amalgam that seems to engulf everything around us.
But let’s not kid ourselves, this didn’t start with Musk. The Internet has been taken over since Facebook and other social networks came out. It’s been slow and systematic, it’s just that now it’s become unbearable.
The Fediverse has become to a greater or lesser extent a refuge for those fleeing the maelstrom. It is far from perfect, paradises do not exist, but that does not imply that it is not worth fighting for.
After all, the Internet can’t really be dead as long as we are here. It has been “taken”, and sooner or later it will have to be taken back.
EDIT: More accurate English title of the story. PDF of the story in English. Wikipedia Page of Cortázar.
Is it really “taken” though when we never owned those spaces to begin with? The house makes sense because it was “their” house and even the country being “taken” makes sense because it is your country in a way
But the digital spaces that rose like Facebook or Reddit were never owned, they were always on borrowed time and resources.
The Taken analogy also implies that there will be less and less space, but it’s easier than ever to create your own digital space and anybody could do it at any time. It’s just that most preferred to use someone else’s space because it was even easier
Facebook and reddit, I would say, are part of the process of taking. You are right, we never “own” Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, we had the feeling that we did, but it was a fallacy. What we did had before (for those who had it at the time and maybe still have it) were the personal pages and forums of yesteryear, which, after the rise of social networks, no longer had a “place” in the new digital space.
Yes, it is easier, but I don’t know if “anybody” can do it. It requires time, resources, very advanced knowledge for the average user and infinite patience. I have a mutual who is struggling to maintain a Venezuelan Mastodon server and is questioning whether to keep it up even though there is almost no one there or continue. It’s not that simple. And in essence, for the average user who knows nothing about servers, the feeling that the world is shrinking and pushing them out is very real.
On the other hand, think that “our” country is not really “ours”, but of those who have the power, who do with it what they want. And our house may not be ours if it is mortgaged or rented. Nuance, nuance, etc, etc…
(Of course, analogies should not be taken as exact).