I think that theres something special about customization. Online, a lot of people throw around the phrase "to be loved is to be changed", and this goes for people and for things, and it usually describes something left unintentional. A change that happens without due to the circumstances of your environment, rather than a specific, thought out action to do so.
When we think of ‘customization’, this is different: a deliberate, understood effort is usually made when you customize an object. Say you place stickers on the cover of your notebook or your laptop: you are posed to think of those stickers, what they mean to you, and what is significant about them. You consider the placement of them, where there is space, and around what other stickers would they fit thematically, or perhaps in color.
It can’t be understated the effect that customization has on something. If you customize an object that belongs to you, it signifies that it is yours, that you have affected or tweaked its appearance in a way that speaks to your sensibilities enforces that it is an extension of one’s self.
If you get a new phone, and you don’t change anything about it... then it can barely claim to be used. A person will typically change the wallpaper and perhaps the homepage layout, customize the photos on their contacts, download other applications, buy a case for it, create photo albums for different events or purposes, among a long list of other actions. All of these reinforce the fact that it is a person possession.
For a while, it seemed as though a lot of platforms were steering away from allowing for customization. I think of the difference between the 3DS, which had countless themes you could buy, and the Nintendo Switch, which would only ever have 2 color options: dark, and light.
Most applications these days are limited to these, with some exceptions where there might be three or four. On social media, users are fairly limited to a profile picture, a short bio, and maybe a banner. Discord, only in the past few years, has started to expand on the customization of profiles, but even these are somewhat limited to colors and decorations.
Imagine how cool it would be if on a messaging app, you had a ‘space’, where you can place your own stickers anywhere, customize all of the colors and icons, maybe even the font. That message stream would become less of “the means by which words are exchanged” and instead becomes “a familiar area of your own creation that signifies the relationship you and that individual have”.
Obviously, platforms such as Neocities provides a vastly customizable space to host and share content with other users. On the other end, the platform that I’m posting this on, Mataroa, specifically keeps it’s appearance as simple as possible, assumedly to not distract from the actual content of the author.
Gods know how much time I’ve spent customizing my laptop. What used to be a number of standard apps for simple tasks have become inflicted with a web of customizable apps and tools, tweaks, mods, edits, and settings.
I use Obsidian for my note-taking, and it’s definitely the most prone to this. I’ve organized my folders, the colors, standardized the tags I’ve used on my notes, and added quite a few plugins. My journey on customizing my ‘vault’ to be perfect is never-ending, and while that task could drive any sane person crazy, it’s something I’ve come to look forward to.
My browser, even, with a plugin called Stylus, allows me to change the appearance of basically any part of any webpage that I desire.
All of these are easier to do when you have some programming knowledge, but to state that code alone is the only means of customization would be a huge mistake. Other people have surely designed or created custom furniture, art, and fashion... Computers just happen to be where my heart lies.
This was just a random blogpost, but I’d love to do this on a more regular basis. Regardless, this has been your’s, ephesusmoon.