The current state of the US:

It feels like the last 10 months have been an unending onslaught of horrible actions, the erosion of human rights, and the destruction of the social fabric that has held society together, but it’s not the last 10 months, it’s the last 20+ years. Things just unwind faster at the end.

Put simply: The gutting of the Fairness Doctrine and the 1996 Telecommunications Act enabled the rise of massive, right-wing media conglomerates like Sinclair Broadcast Group and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel). This systematically eliminated local, independent journalism and created a national propaganda apparatus that could broadcast centralized, partisan talking points through hundreds of local affiliate stations, masquerading as local news. This hit small towns especially hard and led to a massive radicalization of rural communities.

This is Extremely Dangerous to Our Democracy.

Between the DMCA, the Patriot Act, the founding of ICE, and the passage of Citizens United, we laid the groundwork for oligarchic authoritarianism in the US. In the years that followed, we watched a slow slide in that direction, which has only continued to accelerate as the remaining checks on power are removed, leading to the situation we have today.

On top of our rightward drift, we are flirting with a massive economic recession, and any number of things could send us tumbling to levels of poverty that are unprecedented. Regional banks are already looking shaky, and there is an apparent liquidity crisis. A large portion of the current stock market appears to be tied up in a bubble built around nearly fraudulent accounting in AI firms.

All the while, we’re also cutting funding for programs that help people in poverty, stripping people of healthcare coverage, destroying our supply chains, and shutting down the government if anyone tries to stop us.

Federal agents, at the direction of the president and in defiance of court orders, are kidnapping people out of their homes (or at the courthouse, or at work) and putting them in concentration camps or making them disappear without a trial. County sheriffs are putting people in jail for posting to Facebook.

City workers in GA ran a man over with a bulldozer and then tried to cover it up. Months before that, they shot an unarmed man who was sitting on the ground in the forest and then lied about it extensively.

The courts are trying to put some limitations and constraints on these “law enforcement” actions, but the agents in question are actively and flagrantly ignoring those court orders, and when there is a financial penalty levied against law enforcement, it is almost always paid out of the pockets of people in their communities, not the officers themselves.

People are being murdered in the streets (by cops, by other people) for crimes such as insufficient respect for the military or being homeless or legally possessing a firearm or going to a concert or being a trans person.

I don’t want to be alarmist. I’m trying to present an accurate picture of the US as it exists today. It is alarming. What happens next is hard to predict, but it seems the dominoes are falling.

My guess is that we’re less than 18 months away from a major, global financial crisis and that we’re ill-equipped to weather it without significant political change.

Things will never go back to how they were before. Before was an anomaly. We have to build something new.

Why does this make you think of technology?

The thing that I want out of my computers and other technology, mostly, is to connect me with other people. Community Software, written by people for other people, an explicit rejection of the advertising panopticon that serves mostly to widen our current social divides and push people further into extremism.

In a world where we can’t trust the rule of law, where the internet is under constant attack, and where poverty is likely to reach unprecedented levels, it becomes increasingly important that we have ways to connect with one another that aren’t dependent on the whims of governments or corporations, and aren’t being monitored 24 hours a day.

Revisiting the BBS

This is an idea that I’ve batted around a lot over the years. I’ve run some experiments, including a deployment in Kennesaw in 2015 and another in the DC metro in 2019. The concept is sound, the hardware is abundant, and the low-level software is all in place. All we have to worry about is the userland.

I think about this every few years (2016 or later 2016 or 2017 or 2019). I tend to tinker with it a bit in private, get excited about it, write a blog post or two, keep tinkering, get distracted, and move on to something else.

But it’s been a decade since my first experimentation with a modern BBS, and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve watched some projects grow and progress and others fizzle and die, and through that, I think I’ve learned enough to propose something new, or at least to refine what I’ve done in the past into a coherent proposal.

The Vision: A Network of Neighborhood Nets

Imagine a city where every apartment building, community center, and local cafe hosts a small mBBS node. You connect your phone to the local node to read community announcements, argue about local politics, or share music from local bands.

When you leave, your phone automatically syncs the latest messages. As you move through the city, your phone becomes a “carrier pigeon,” silently exchanging these messages with other nodes you pass, or with your home node later that evening. A message from the east side can slowly make its way to the west side, hop-by-hop, through the devices of ordinary people, creating a true people-powered network.

The mBBS project seeks to revive the ethos of early BBS culture by creating a standard for local, distributed, and community-operated social networks using modern technology. It is designed to be a censorship-resistant, surveillance-proof communication platform that operates as a parallel, offline-capable network.

The core philosophy emphasizes low-cost, high-participation, and ease of use, treating nodes as disposable “cattle, not pets.” The project aims to provide a set of guidelines and a reference implementation, with the explicit goal of fostering a multi-vendor ecosystem of compatible servers and clients, analogous to the interoperability seen in historical networks like FidoNet.

The Plan

I’m working on a specification for a message format that is text-based, with optional key-based encryption and signed hashes from the originating user and the transmitting server, and a reference implementation for a client, a server, and support for multiple transfer/sync methods, including LAN, LoRa, VPN, and full sneakernet.

The system synchronizes content asynchronously across a federated mesh. The project encourages a diverse ecosystem of compatible servers and clients, much like historical networks such as FidoNet, fostering a community-driven approach to building local digital commons.

Core Goals

• Open Protocol and Ecosystem: The project defines a standard method for node-to-node and client-to-node communication. While a reference implementation will be provided, other server and client implementations are explicitly encouraged to promote widespread adoption and innovation.
• Infrastructure Independence: Operate outside the conventional internet, using RF protocols like Wi-Fi or LoRa, but also sneakernet file transfer.
• Accessibility and Low Cost: We’re targeting low-power computers, SBCs, embedded devices, and other machines that were destined for the landfill.
• Ease of Use: It must be easy to discover, to use, and to deploy for end-users and server operators.
• Offline-first, Federated, Asynchronous, and Delay Tolerant: The core of the project is a local message board that will sync with other boards via store-and-forward, not requiring constant connectivity.
• Optional message signing (authentication) and encryption (privacy).

This is Community Software. It is a Small Thing. It is intended to be People First and ultimately to do very little. Pass messages, store and forward, verify where they came from when that’s appropriate, and where they’re going when that’s appropriate.

That’s it.

Non-Goals and Explicit Exclusions

• No Blockchain/DLT: The system will not use a distributed ledger or cryptocurrency.
• No Eventual Consistency Promise: The network is asynchronous and best-effort.
• No Complex Trustless Fabric: The design acknowledges a base level of trust and uses simple blocking tools rather than attempting to algorithmically purge all malicious actors.
• No Monopoly: The project is a standard and a reference, not a single, closed implementation. Interoperability is a primary objective.

Current state

I have a design doc and a working draft specification for the client and server API, and I have a rough prototype running on a cheap SBC at our cafe and another one running in my home.

mBBS currently supports manually initiated sneakernet sync and manually initiated LAN/VPN server-to-server sync only.

It does support message signing and message encryption, but not in a way that I think is particularly worthwhile. Everything about this exists as a proof of concept, not as something ready for general consumption.

Next steps.

This week, I’m going to add a naive implementation for automatic sync on LAN between servers. Then I’m going to document how I built and configured the existing servers and post instructions for running one yourself, along with the existing software stack.

There is not currently any client software beyond a simple web app. Building a prototype desktop app and PWA will be the next development milestone.

Then it’s implementing automatic server > client > server sync (carrier pigeoning).

In parallel, I’d like to get a few more servers online to begin testing hop distance.

I’ll post here again when it’s ready, so subscribe via RSS or follow me on the fediverse for that announcement. This is pre-alpha, bare minimum, proof of concept stuff. It might never move far beyond that, but if I can get some people on board to work with me, it might go a little further.

In the last post in this series I talked at length about why you might want to leave existing corporate media platforms. I won’t re-hash all of those arguments here, but I’m going to assume if you’re reading this that you already have your reasons. Maybe you’re tired of the censorship, the price hikes, or the feeling that your favorite show might vanish into a licensing black hole. Instead, in this post, I’m going to talk about why you might want to self-host a media server instead of simply availing yourself of other available alternatives.

Why Self Host?

In this era of streaming, we’ve grown accustomed to certain modes of interaction. Even if you have a big physical media library, you may want to be able to access it on the road, or from your smart TV, or maybe you just don’t want to have to get up and insert a blu-ray or a DVD. A media server brings that convenience home, literally.

But it’s more than that. Self-hosting is an act of declaration. It’s saying, “This is my space. These are my stories.” Here’s why that matters:

• It’s Yours, Forever: When you buy a DVD or a DRM-free file, you’ve purchased a license to that media. A server is how you exercise that license on your own terms. No corporation can take it away, edit it, or bury it in an algorithm. Your library is permanent.
• The Great Unifier: If you support independent cinema you might also find yourself, like me, in the position of having a large number of legitimately acquired DRM-free digital downloads from various Kickstarters, Indiegogo campaigns, and other crowdfunding efforts. Keeping track of and consuming bare digital files is, frankly, a pain in the butt. A good, self-hosted media server can make that more pleasant. It also seamlessly integrates your physical media rips, home movies, and any other digital files into one beautiful, browsable interface.
• A Sanctuary from the Noise: Your server has no ads. No “trending now” algorithms vying for your attention. No data being mined about whether you binge cartoons on Tuesday nights. It’s a quiet, intentional space for the content you have consciously chosen to bring into your life.
• Digital Stewardship: You become an archivist. By ripping your discs and saving digital files, you’re taking some steps towards ensuring the art you love survives platform decay and corporate whims. You’re preserving a piece of culture in a small, personal, but very real way.
• It Just Works Better (For You): The user experience, when tailored to your own collection, is simply superior. No more jumping between six different apps with six different interfaces. Everything you care about is in one place, organized exactly how you want it, ready to play the second you hit the button.

Jellyfin, Kodi, or Something Else? Picking Your Poison

For me, there are two good options for server software, one okay option, and one I’d avoid.

Jellyfin: The New Standard Jellyfin is the new kid on the block, and it’s excellent. It’s completely free and open-source, with no “premium” features held back. It’s incredibly powerful, with apps for virtually every platform (Roku, Fire TV, Android, iOS, etc.). It automatically fetches beautiful metadata, art, and subtitles. If you’re starting today, Jellyfin is probably your best bet.

Kodi: The Grizzled Veteran Kodi has a long and storied history, evolving from the legendary XBMC. It’s more than just a server; it’s a full-blown, highly customizable media center interface. Its strength lies in its immense ecosystem of add-ons and skins. It can feel a bit more complex to set up for whole-home streaming, but it’s a powerhouse for the dedicated tinkerer.

What about Emby? In my last post I mentioned Emby briefly. It’s the open-source project Jellyfin was forked from. It’s slick and has a good reputation. However, it operates under a freemium model, with some fairly significant features like hardware transcoding locked behind a paywall. I don’t love this kind of artificial limitation on technologies I’m hosting myself. It’s a valid option, but I have reservations.

And Plex? A Caution. I expect Plex to fully enshitify itself at any moment. It has a broad feature set, it works well, and it’s (sort of) self-hostable. But nearly everything you do is tied to Plex’s servers, and I am very suspicious of their motives and the amount of data collection they do. I used Plex years ago but have since migrated away and encourage you to do the same.

Hardware: Keep It Simple

Lots of these tutorials say something like “run it on a raspberry pi” and … I mean you can, if you know what you’re doing and you want to use underpowered hardware for this purpose, but I wouldn’t.

My strong recommendation? Run it on an old laptop. It’s the perfect home server: it has a built-in battery backup (a huge plus), a screen for setup, and is designed for low power consumption. Hook it up to a large external hard drive—something like a Seagate Expansion drive which holds 18TB of media and represents a great dollar-to-byte ratio. You could probably get away with something much smaller, but the principle stands.

Pick whatever software you want. Run it on whatever hardware you have. Don’t think about it too much, unless you really want to, in which case you should probably be reading a different, much longer post.

Fancy Networking: Reaching Home From Everywhere Else

The following section touches on some technical topics, but doesn’t get very deep into them. If you want to access your media server from outside your home, you might need to look at one of the techniques discussed here. You may need to research one of these topics in more detail, even.

If you don’t need to access your server from outside your home, skip it. No hard feelings.

My goal is to introduce complex topics and keywords, giving you enough of a foundation to adapt this for your own situation or use it as a springboard for further research.

The biggest benefit to something like Plex or Emby over Jellyfin is the perceived ease of remote access. This is true, but it’s also non-essential once you know the alternatives.

• The Simple, Magical Way: ZeroTier. Think of ZeroTier as a “magic tunnel” that creates a secure, private network between all your devices, no matter where they are. Install ZeroTier on your server and your phone/laptop, have them all join the same network. The whole process is documented on their site, and takes about 2 minutes. Now, you can access your Jellyfin server from a coffee shop as if you were on your own couch. It’s dead simple to set up and free for personal use. This is my go-to recommendation.
• The Advanced, “Full Internet Citizen” Way: A Reverse Proxy. This is what you’d need if you want to let your friends access your server from their homes without installing any special software. It’s a way to securely open a single, specific door from the public internet into your server. The steps for doing this, and the security considerations, are beyond the scope of this article. The simple version is: 1) have a server with a static IP address join your Zerotier network 2) configure your server software to proxy connections back to your home network.

There are services, both free and paid, that exist to provide a quick and dirty dynamic subdomain and reverse proxy for your home network. I’ve used several over the years, but these days I just have a $2.50/month server from Vultr that does the work for me.

Important note: if all the networking stuff made your eyes gloss over, that’s fine. Not everyone needs to understand home networking. If you don’t need to access your media server when you’re away from home, skip it. If you do, but you didn’t understand the networking, I can point you towards some good tutorials, or help you when you get stuck. This kind of thing isn’t easy, but it is achievable, even without a technical background.

The Media Itself: The Treasure Hunt

Alright, that’s most of the boring technical stuff out of the way! Now let’s talk about the fun part: a few strategies you can use to load up your server with media.

1) Physical Media I love physical media, but the first thing I do when I get a new DVD or Blueray is rip it. I personally use MakeMKV for this task, which does the job admirably, and is currently free to use. MakeMKV will also work with 4K/UHD discs, but you’ll need a drive with the appropriate firmware.

Handbrake can also do DVDs, although it might run into trouble with encrypted DVDs. If you do, you’re probably on Windows and you’ll probably need a copy of libdvdcss.dll.

Depending on where you live, it may or may not be legal for you to break the encryption on your DVDs or blurays, but it is legal to back up those discs in most jurisdictions. It’s a practice known as format shifting, and it has been routinely supported in both written and case law. This mess is, in the US at least, because of the DMCA. The DMCA was a bad law that should not have been passed.

Of course, your mileage may vary, I am not a lawyer, etc. etc. etc.

2) Kickstarter and Indie Downloads A lot of kickstarters for new films and TV shows and for silent film restoration and other public domain archival come with a DRM free download.

Often times these will be delivered via Vimeo. If it looks like it doesn’t have a download and is just streaming on vimeo, double check. Often there is a “download” button hiding on the page somewhere.

3) The Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons Speaking of the public domain, the Internet Archive has a large repository of public domain material. Now, a critical note: just because it’s on the Internet Archive does not mean it’s in the public domain. There’s a huge amount of legally available public domain material on the archive, but there are also a fair number of things that probably shouldn’t be there.

The Archive is a particularly good resource for early public domain television episodes, classic films, and obscure newsreels. All of these items are available via BitTorrent. You can find a “Torrent” download link on the item’s page, which you can feed to your torrent client. Downloading public domain content via torrent from the Internet Archive is a perfectly legal and efficient way to acquire these files, unlike getting your torrents from a site like 1337x.to, which hosts primarily infringing content.

Wikimedia Commons also has a huge number of public domain films, such as Filibus and Charade, ready to download directly.

Both services are also home to lots of music, including Public Domain recordings, and CC licensed material from various netlables. I’ll talk more about music in a future post.

4) PeerTube Most videos hosted on PeerTube have downloads enabled. I have a huge library of public domain and creative commons licensed material on my own instance. You can visit New Ellijay Television and press the download button on any of our videos. (Here’s one to get you started: The First Spaceship on Venus.)

If that gets tedious, you can also use yt-dlp on PeerTube (along with lots of other services) to download materials that are legal to download. It works well and will download a whole playlist or channel if that’s what you ask it to do. If you’re going to use yt-dlp, wrap the url in quotes. So the command to download every video from our music channel would be:

yt-dlp "https://vod.newellijay.tv/c/music/videos"

It can be intimidating to use at first, but once you get used to it it is very simple.

5) Other sources In the near future, I’ll be writing up a more comprehensive guide to building a digital media library from legal sources. But nothing will ever be truly comprehensive, so I encourage you to seek out other sources.

An Important Distinction: I have not mentioned copyright piracy here, because it is illegal in most jurisdictions. It is, however, worth noting that some of the tools I mention, like yt-dlp or torrenting, can be used for both legal preservation and illegal downloading. Pay attention to what you’re doing, and make sure you are legally covered.

Cleaning It Up: The Final Polish

Once you’ve got your media on your server, you’re going to want to make sure it matches the naming conventions your software expects. If your TV shows aren’t in folders like this: SHOW NAME > SEASON 01 > FILE they probably won’t show up in Jellyfin. There are tools that’ll help organize things if you’re having a hard time. I like Mediaelch. It’s a free tool that you can use to sort and rename your poorly named media. It’s not as fast as some of the paid options (like Filebot), but it works well enough for most people in most cases.

Your server software will usually automatically fetch poster art, descriptions, and other metadata. If it doesn’t, it might not be able to identify what a piece of media is. That’s fine, you can either fix it by helping the server identify the media, or by manually adding images, descriptions etc.

And Then What?

Well, if you’ve made it this far, you’ll have a home media server with a growing library of content that you can watch or listen to when you’re at home. If you set up zerotier (and I think you should!) then you can also access it from your phone or laptop when you’re on the road. And if you got real deep in the weeds with a reverse proxy, you can even let your friends access your server from their homes.

In future posts, I’ll discuss other places from which you can find media, turning this library into a live streaming television network (complete with commercials, if you want them), and how to make it easier for your friends to add videos to your library.

Until then, have fun and happy watching. You’ve just built something that can’t be taken away from you.

Things were slow enough at this year’s show that I had time to walk the entire floor, talk to every vendor, and shoot this recap video. It’s a neat artifact, and I’m glad I was able to produce it, but I shouldn’t have had time to.

A little background

Joelanta started in the early 00s, was renamed to Toylanta for a while, and then eventually spun back off into it’s own show separate from Toylanta, but run by the same team.

I’ve been attending both Joelanta and Toylanta for close to two decades. In the early days, it felt like a community celebration with a vendor area attached. My best memories are of the massive dioramas for the Cody Lane Foundation, the lobby parachute drops, and the Radio Cult concerts (all of which were absent from this event.)

George Washington fighting the Kraken in a diorama from Toylanta 2021

When the original organizers passed the torch a few years ago, a lot of that celebratory spirit seemed to leave with them. This year, the majority of the art and creativity was confined to a few tables in a hallway. There were no dioramas, no concerts, and barely an artists’ alley. Instead, the floor was filled with small manufacturers selling expensive new toys or advertising items not yet available for sale. The lighting was poor, and the mood among vendors was melancholy and bored.

Our booth at Joelanta 2025. Several vendors commented on how much better the lighting was in our booth compared to some of the others.

I had a good time, but that’s because things were slow enough that I was able to go around and talk to every vendor in the building and get photos and video in nearly every booth. You might notice in our recap video that our camera operators are not fighting to avoid people or being jostled around, that’s because there was very little crowd for the majority of the show.

Who are you, anyway?

For context, my dad and I are lifelong toy collectors and customizers who turned our passion into a business. We run Mountain Town Toys, operate booths in five antique malls, and attend an average of one toy show per month all year. In additional to all that, I own a bookstore, cafe, and toy shop called Hemlock Bazaar in Ellijay, Georgia. We’re deeply embedded in the local toy scene, involved in various non-toy businesses, and we even do high-touch manufactured injection molding.

A shot of our retail store, Hemlock Bazaar.

What I’m saying here is that I know toys pretty well, I know what the market is like outside of this show, I know a lot of the other folks involved in the scene, and I know what the broader economy beyond the vintage toy market looks like.

The Hard Numbers: Joelanta 2025 vs. The Past

Based on my experience and conversations with other vendors, this was one of the weakest toy shows I’ve ever attended. I can back that up with data.

Joelanta 2025 Summary

We made just over $4,000 across about 60 transactions. After expenses (a $325 table, ~$400 in labor, ~$100 in gas), we netted about $3,175. That’s only about $75 more than the worst three-day show I’d ever done… which was Joelanta 2024.

Joelanta 2024 Summary

Last year, we made just under $4,000 across 100+ transactions with similar expenses, netting around $3,100. I wrote that off as a fluke due to a hurricane and a chemical fire. that forced the show to end early.

I considered Joelanta 2024 a catastrophic failure driven entirely by external forces, and Joelanta 2025 has made me reconsider that assessment.

Some of our weird inventory - In this case Paco Dino Warriors.

An Aside About Inventory: It’s important to note that about 75% of our sales at both Joelantas were to other vendors. We specialize in weird and obscure toys, so we can often do well even with low customer turnout because vendors love our unique stock. The fact that we still struggled is a major red flag in my book. Many vendors I spoke with reported sales far worse than ours, with some barely covering their hotel costs.

Joelanta 2023 & The “Name” Problem

Some vendors I spoke with (8 different people over the course of the show) blamed the “Joelanta” name, saying it’s too niche and scares off non-G.I. Joe fans. But that argument doesn’t hold up against recent history. At Joelanta 2023 (the last run by the original organizer), we had over 200 sales totaling about $10,000 in revenue. It was a strong, healthy show.

Joelanta 2023 was so busy that this is the only photo I managed to grab! You can sort of make out our inventory behind the makeshift badge we were given.

Ruling Out Other Culprits

Was it the Venue? Or the Economy in general?

Joelanta 2024 and 2025 were held at the Gas South Center. Perhaps the location is the issue?

Our booth at Toylanta 2025. We were in the furthest room from the main event hall, upstairs, at the end of a long hallway. The booth was awkwardly shaped. In spite of that, it was a better show.

• Toylanta 2025: Was held at the same venue in March. We generated $9,000 in revenue. It wasn’t our best show, but it was solid. The venue itself isn’t the problem. (Toylanta 2025 had some issues of its own, but they were minor compared to the last two Joelantas.)
• Japanfest 2025: I was at the Gas South Center the weekend before Joelanta, vending for a friend at Bonsabi Tea. They had their best Japanfest ever in terms of sales and volume. In the same building, three doors down, one week prior.
• Other Locations: As I mentioned previously, we’ve got booths at a number of Antique Malls throughout the southeast and we’re involved in businesses beyond toys. I have years of historic sales data to pull from for these locations. August and September are, historically, our slowest months of the year across every location. This August was our best on record, and this September was within 5% of our best September. It’s not the economic climate.

Our booth at one of the several Antique Malls where we sell toys. This time it’s The Electric Crocodile in Chatanooga, TN.

Powder Springs Toy Swap

Every other month there’s a sidewalk sale at treasure hunt in Powder Springs. It’s fairly cheap to set up, draws a huge crowd, and is usually a great time. I’d be there right now, instead of writing this post, if I wasn’t doing Crocktober fest at the Electric Crocodile today.

Our table at a recent sidewalk swap at treasure hunt. We didn’t bring much inventory, but we still had a very good show.

We set up at the powder springs show at least 3 times a year and usually clear between $1,500 and 2,000 for our trouble. When you consider that in concert with the lower expenses ($20 for a table!) and the significantly closer venue, it becomes much more attractive to do the sidewalk swap than a big 3 day show.

Other Shows

Like I said earlier in this post, I do a lot of toy shows beyond Joe/Toylanta. In the last five years, I’ve had three multi-day shows where I averaged less than $1500 per day in revenue, two were Joelanta, and the third was the first Designer Art Toy Show in Philly, which I’ve written about extensively.

Our booth at the Designer Art Toy Show in Philly. We had a great time showcasing our handmade toys.

I had a blast at the Philly show, which is a showcase specifically for hand made toys, and I have every reason to believe it will only get bigger and better from here. In two days there, we cleared just under $3,000 in revenue across ~300 total attendees. That’s about 15% better sales per diem sales, at a show with significantly fewer attendees in a much more niche market.

Everyone I talked to was excited and enthusiastic. The lighting was great, the events and panels were very good, and the attendees were having a fun time. I will absolutely go back to the Designer Art Toy Show.

Joelanta was a different story. The lighting was abysmal, the event crew were stressed and overwhelmed, the other vendors were unhappy, and even the attendees seemed to want to be somewhere else. While I’m sure there were more people in attendance than at the Philly show and a much wider variety of toys on display, every vendor I spoke with reported lower than usual sales and, aside from some first time visitors, nearly every attendee I spoke to was disappointed with the show.

What happens now?

I don’t want to be overly negative. I was surrounded by a toy community I love, and I had priceless time to connect with old friends and new. But that’s the core issue: in past years, I was too busy selling toys to have those long conversations.

I always bring a camera to these shows, but most years we’re too busy for me to actually step out and get much footage. The last time I was able to get any real footage at a toy show was at Toylanta 2021, where I had enough time on Sunday morning before general access opened up to get about ten minutes of footage (on a camera built in 1971) that we cut down into a 3 minute recap video. In that footage, you can see some of the kinds of dioramas I was talking about earlier, and a hint of the creative community no longer present at this show.

Footage from Toylanta 2021 - I only had about 15 minutes free to capture it. It was shot on a camera from the 70s, I won’t appologize for that.

Compare that the Joelanta retrospective video at the top of this post which is cut down from over two hours of footage shot over more than 4 hours of just wandering around and talking to people.

Things change, so it goes. The new event organizers have a new vision for the show, which centers high end toy designers like Brutal Realms and Animal Warriors of the Kingdom. I wish them all the best and I want them to be successful, but I can’t help but wonder if there is a disconnect between the show they want to host and the show the community wants to attend.

In the meantime, I have a lot of unsold inventory from this year’s Joelanta, and frankly from last year’s, that I’m going to be sharing on Mastodon and Instagram. If you see something you want, reach out.

The episode was written by me and features the voice of Josh Allen. You can listen right here.

The next episode is scheduled for release on Thursday, November 6th, and is currently available in early access for patrons and sponsors.

We’ve had a lot of fun doing Expedition Sasquatch over the years, and we’re on track to release monthly episodes for at least the next several months. I hope you enjoy.

If you’re running in the same circles I am, you’ve no doubt seen a wave of people canceling their Disney+ and Hulu accounts in the wake of Disney’s capitulation (and eventual slow walkback) to demands from the FCC chair (and the two corporations which collectively own a majority of ABC afilliates) to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

Now, I don’t care about Kimmel at all, but I am very worried about the consolidation of power created by the modern media, it’s something I’ve been writing about for a Long Time. If you’re trying to figure out where to put your eyeballs in the wake of this action by Disney, or your just generally fed up with letting a distant faceless corporation controll what you watch, allow me to suggest some alternatives.

The Last Straw

It was a perfect, damning one-two punch. When a chorus of right-wing media personalities, a major broadcaster, and a federal official pressured them to canel of Jimmy Kimmel over a vague political statement, Disney immediately capitulated, pulling the show from the air. They only reversed course after a massive public outcry, boycott, and wave of cancellations.

Days later, as if to add insult to injury, they significantly raised the price of their streaming services.

If you were trying to organize a mass movement away from Disney+, and Hulu, and perhaps encourage a critical re-evaluation of streaming as a concept, I don’t know what you would have done differently.

This sequence is a masterclass in corporate cowardice. It demonstrated that principle is negotiable and that you, the subscriber, are a revenue stream to be managed, not a community to be respected. But this incident is not an anomaly. It is a symptom of a terminal disease within our media ecosystem.

The beast is sick, and it’s making us sick, too.

The Real Problem Isn’t a Single Show, It’s the Entire System

We’ve been here before. In 2016, I warned about the dangers of the media oligopoly:

“Comcast, Viacom, Disney, CBS, and Time Warner currently control 90% of American media… They collectively control so much of our political and economic landscape that it’s difficult to effectively understand, or begin to trace, the breadth of their influence… Simply put, we cannot afford to have such a vital part of our society controlled by so few.”

Nothing has improved. It has gotten worse. The streaming wars have just created new, digital fiefdoms ruled by the same old kings.

This isn’t a new fight.

In 1971, media activists from the Raindance Corporation published a manifesto called Guerrilla Television. They diagnosed the broadcast television of their era as “the Beast”: a centralized, homogenizing system designed for passive consumption, denying people the ability to talk back or create. “Growing up in America on television,” they wrote, “is like learning how to read but being denied the chance to write.”

Their solution was a “media-ecological” one: a healthy society needs a diverse, decentralized information environment where people have control over the means of production and distribution. The goal was not to reform the beast, but to build a new, healthier ecosystem alongside it.

The shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the end of this year is the final proof that we cannot rely on any single pillar, public or corporate. The vacuum left by CPB will be filled by the very corporate giants that have failed us.

Our response must be to actively build and support a resilient, decentralized alternative.

A Guide to the New Ecosystem: Where to Go Now

Leaving the Beast isn’t about deprivation. It’s about migration to a more vibrant, ethical, and interesting media landscape. Here is a spectrum of alternatives, from easy swaps to radical self-determination.

The Easy Swaps: Better Content, Better Ethics

These platforms offer a familiar streaming experience but are built on fundamentally better models.

• Dropout: Creator-owned and operated, this service is a haven for clever, weird, and genuinely funny comedy (like the wildly popular Dimension 20). Your subscription directly supports artists, not a corporate board. Dropout also follows a profit sharing model for crew and talent.
• Nebula: Built in partnership with top-tier educational creators, Nebula is a direct challenge to the YouTube algorithm. It offers ad-free, deep-dive content where creators have the freedom to experiment. It’s a co-op, not a corporation.
• CuriosityStream & Mubi: For documentary lovers and cinephiles, these services offer focused, high-quality libraries. While they are traditional for-profit companies, they serve niche audiences with respect, unlike the homogenizing algorithms of Netflix.

The Principled Shifts: New Ownership Models

These platforms are built from the ground up with an explicit ethical and political mission.

• Means TV: This is a self-described “worker-owned anti-capitalist streaming service.” It offers a mix of comedy, news, and genre-blending original content. Subscribing isn’t just about watching; it’s about supporting a radical experiment in economic democracy.
• New Ellijay Television: This is what community television looks like in the 21st century. A free service providing on-demand content, live streams, and a 24/7 channel featuring locally produced sitcoms, news, and music, alongside historical archives and syndicated material from independent producers worldwide. It’s media by and for a community.(Yes, this is me! We’re on Roku, and online.)
• Community Media: This is a peertube instance I run to serve the principles of Community Media as discussed in my book “Community Media.”

Public Institutions: Reclaiming Civic Infrastructure

In the wake of the CPB’s defunding, supporting the remaining pillars of our public media infrastructure is an act of resistance. These services are funded by and for the public, offering high-quality, educational, and artistic content.

• Kanopy & Hoopla: These are “gateway” services offered through many public library systems. They provide free access to thousands of indie films, classic cinema, and documentaries. A crucial note: They are expensive for libraries, so using them demonstrates demand and supports the library’s mission. If your local library doesn’t offer them, you can often get a card from a larger library system, like the Queens Public Library which offers a card to anyone in the U.S. for $50 a year, a direct investment in a public institution. It’s worth pointing out that kanopy itself is owned by some questionable folks, and it’s longevity and future utility is in question.
• PBS Passport: This member benefit provides on-demand access to a deep archive of PBS’s stellar programming, and helps to fund your local member station in the wake of the death of CPB. Supporting your local PBS station is a direct investment in the kind of journalism and storytelling the corporate “Beast” neglects. PBS Passport is uaully $5/month.
• Medici.tv: A service dedicated to classical music and opera, often featuring live streams from the world’s great concert halls. It represents the high-cultural mission that public media was created to serve. (Medici is $175/year, but is often free with a library card from a participating library such as the Queens public library.)

The Systemic Solutions: Owning the Means of Preservation

These options bypass the streaming economy entirely, hitting the oligopoly where it hurts: their bottom line and their control.

• Physical Media: The most powerful and underrated form of media independence. Buying DVDs/Blu-rays, especially second hand, or borrowing them from your local library is a decentralized, resilient act. You own the content, it can’t be edited, and it supports public institutions. Couple some physical media with a decent external optical drive and a copy of Handbrake or MakeMKV and you’re off to the races.
• The Internet Archive: A non-profit digital library, it is one of the most important preservation projects in human history. Its collection of films, music, books, and software is a testament to the power of community-driven archiving over corporate memory.

The New Guerrilla Frontiers: Radical Decentralization

This is the cutting edge of the fight for control, directly echoing the cybernetic ideals of Guerrilla Television.

• Jellyfin/Emby: The modern equivalent of a public-access studio. These are free, self-hosted media servers that let you manage and stream your own personal library of movies, TV, and music. The technical hurdle is higher, but the reward is total control. No corporate oversight, no arbitrary removals, no algorithms.
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Digital Preservation: The most radical alternative is the decentralized, community-driven sharing and archiving of media. Tools like yt-dlp allow users to preserve content from corporate platforms like Youtube or Tubi, saving it from the “digital decay” of licensing deals or censorship. This landscape is complex and exists in legal gray areas, but it represents a pure form of the guerrilla ethos: seizing the means of distribution to ensure cultural survival.

That sounds like a lot of work!

Yes, it’s less convenient than having everything in one app. You’ll miss some blockbusters. Your watchlist will be fragmented.

But this is the entire point.

Convenience is the tax we pay for surrender. The slight friction of a diverse media diet is the sign of a healthy ecosystem. It means you are thinking, choosing, and participating rather than just consuming.

Your Remote is a Ballot

Every subscription is a vote for the kind of media world you want to live in. Do you want a homogenized, cowardly landscape controlled by a handful of corporations that see you as a data point? Or do you want a diverse, brave, and curious ecosystem built by creators and communities?

The Beast is sick. It’s time to stop feeding it and start nurturing the alternatives. The future of our media, and our culture, depends on it.

What alternatives are we missing? Share your favorite independent platforms and preservation tools on the fediverse.

Firefox, once the stalwart defender of the open web, is now busily integrating AI summarization features that, on mobile at least, are as easy to accidentally trigger as they are wasteful. This comes alongside a new fondness for chatbots, a noticeable uptick in in-browser advertising, and a quiet embrace of tracking. It feels like a betrayal from an old friend. Another betrayal. The latest in a long series of betrayals that have been on the rise since the launch of the Chrome browser.

Chrome, a product of the world’s largest advertising company, has never been a friend to the open web. It has now effectively rendered adblocking non-functional (yes, there’s currently a workaround. No, there will not always be a workaround), a move that surprises no one but disappoints everyone. Chrome’s entire existence is a conflict of interest, a browser designed to keep you on a page full of ads, not to take you to the destination you sought.

Safari is not innocent either, making its own overtures towards the same trifecta of advertising, surveillance, and AI. Meanwhile, The Browser Company and their Arc browser were just purchased by Atlasian, with promises to outdo everyone else in “Advanced AI” features. We can already see the future this builds: a browser that makes untrustworthy assumptions, reinforces stereotypes, and slowly erodes a user’s ability to think critically.

Every other mainstream browser is a derivative of Chrome or Firefox, built by teams without the funding to keep pace. The result is a landscape of browsers that are perpetually behind, vulnerable, and ultimately unsustainable.

In a recent court filing, Google itself conceded that the open web is in “rapid decline.” The irony is so thick you could choke on it. This is the man in the hotdog suit, pointing at the crowd, asking who could have done this. Google is the architect of this decline. Mozilla has been a complacent accomplice, and the W3C seems to only listen to the whims of corporate giants.

Long before their AI push, Google was already doing everything in its power to keep users on its search results page, surrounded by ads, rather than encouraging them to click through to the actual websites that provided the information. This practice has been systematically killing websites and small businesses for years. It’s also very much a situation of Google eating their own seedcorn, and ultimately starving the businesses who’s free labor built them.

The web as a democratized publishing platform is on life support, and the browser makers seem desperate to pull the plug.

Now What?

If we want an open web to survive, we will have to be the ones to save it. This means a conscious return to publishing real websites. It means a revival of RSS. It means building a web so simple and straightforward that a browser like Netsurf, Lynx, or Dillo is all you need to view it. It means seeking out and supporting alternative search engines like Marginalia, and making a deliberate effort to disentangle our digital lives from the grip of Big Tech.

We can preserve the web as a place for community media and for the distribution of small things, but it will require a dedicated and intentional effort from all of us. Publishers must return to building simpler websites, free of burdensome tracking and bloated JavaScript. Readers must embrace simpler browsers that do not spy on them or lie to them.

I did not mention the Gemini protocol above. I like Gemini. I think it is a neat idea, a supplementary web protocol that is non-commercial and intentionally less flexible. I have been advocating for such things for years (see: Observations on Modern Computing or Steps towards a web without the internet or Remembering the web that wasn’t or even Reviving the BBS.) But the name “Gemini” has been poisoned by Google, making discovery nearly impossible. Gemspace also suffers from a severe chicken and egg problem: not enough content to attract readers, not enough readers to justify creating content. The network effects of the modern web are a powerful gravity that something like Gemini may never escape.

I like the web a lot. Or at least, I liked what it was. I do not want to see it disappear behind a paywall. I do not want to be tracked everywhere I go. I do not want my browser to waste hours of electricity to incorrectly summarize an article because I accidentally shook my phone.

So I am spending more time in simpler browsers. I have been enjoying Kristall, which supports basic HTML, Gemini, Gopher, and Finger.

I am working on directories and webrings to help with content discovery.

I am making a concerted effort to spend more time and energy posting on the open web, and not inside various social media panopticons.

Join me, won’t you?

It’s been 19 months.

I know. I know. You thought maybe the Ro-Men finally got me. Or that I’d finally cornered Bigfoot and he’d put me through a wall (a worthy death, if you ask me). Or that I’d finally given up and taken a job at the Ellijay Piggly Wiggly.

None of the above! In fact, the Piggly Wiggly’s been gone for nearly two decades. The truth is far less interesting. Life, as it has a habit of doing, got in the way. There were things to fix, bills to pay, and a husband (Skippy, of course) who insisted I “take a break for my health” after the whole… Not-Deer incident. I maintain that the venom was only mildly paralytic and that I recovered with nothing but a fierce determination and a newfound allergy to venison… Look, you’ll have to wait until November to hear about that one, okay.

But a man can only stack so many cans of beans in his basement before the itch returns. The itch to get back out there. To feel the crunch of unfamiliar leaves under your boots. To smell the distinct, musky aroma of a cryptid that isn’t your weird neighbor.

So, we’re back.

Expedition Sasquatch Episode 19: “Bugs ‘n’ Such” is out now.

It’s a good one. We’re dealing with something new. Something wing-ed. Something… Well, it’s the goddamn mothman, okay. I hate him, you hate him, but he does lead us somewhere interesting.

This is the first of four new episodes we’ve got locked and loaded for the rest of the year. The plan is to hit a monthly schedule for as long as humanly (or inhumanly) possible. We’re not messing around this time.

For our most dedicated Squatchers—the ones who’ve been keeping the lights on and the ammo stocked—there’s already another new episode available right now. You can find it:

• On our Patreon
• Or for our NETV Sponsors

That one involves a sentient meat puddle. It’s a real gross time.

It’s good to be talking into the mic again. It’s good to be back in the woods. The truth is still out there, and it’s still ugly, poorly understood, and probably wants to eat us.

Let’s go find it.

-Jack

For a long time, I wanted something messier. Something alive.

That want is what eventually became the Solar Federation Universe. It’s a sprawling, open, shared-fiction project set about a thousand years from now. The central hub is a place called Intergalactic Social, which is exactly what it sounds like: an in-character social network where the inhabitants of this universe: humans, giant warlike teddy-bear people, and pop-culture-obsessed nerds from Aldebaran can interact.

The flagship story follows the Jupiter’s Ghost, a once-proud battle cruiser now refitted for exploration and running on grit, goodwill, and constant repairs. It’s part of the Space Corps, a non-military, mutual-aid organization trying to do good in a Solar Federation that’s slowly showing its authoritarian cracks. It’s a setting that lets us tell stories that are hopeful, cynical, adventurous, and mundane, sometimes all at once.

For a while, the project was quiet. Not dead, just… percolating. But that’s changed.

We’ve been working behind the scenes to make it more welcoming, to sand down the rough edges that keep new people from jumping in. We’ve got a new video game in beta, the podcast crew are working on putting out new episodes, and the whole thing feels like it’s humming with energy again.

And that’s what this post is really about.

This universe was always meant to be built together. If you’ve ever wanted to slip into the background of a sci-fi show and actually stay, to be a cynical engineer, an enthusiastic xenobotanist, or a cadet just trying to log their star hours, your spot is open. The canon isn’t a fence; it’s a playground. The story isn’t set; it’s waiting for you to help write it.

If you’re interested, here’s how to start:

• Come register and make an account. (Give me enough info when you do that I can be sure you’re a real person!)
• Get a feel for the Lore and Canon.
• Read up on How to Contribute.
• And please, read our Code of Conduct. We’re building a welcoming place, not a mirror of the internet’ worst impulses.

You can also just dive in and listen to an episode of the podcast to see what the vibe is. Or check out the incredibly cool, retro Jupiter’s Ghost video game beta.

The story’s accelerating. It’s a good time to come aboard.

Bigfoot hunter Jack is back—and this time, he’s in your Game Boy Color. Based on the hit comedy podcast Expedition Sasquatch, this retro-styled adventure drops you into Jack’s world of bizarre encounters, strange creatures, and mysteries that are way weirder than anything he set out to find.

Explore dense forests, wander into a curiously out-of-place city, and meet a cast of odd characters, all while hunting for clues (and, okay, maybe something resembling a Sasquatch). With classic 8-bit visuals, chiptune music, and the same offbeat humor as the podcast, it’s a love letter to both handheld gaming and Jack’s uniquely terrible expedition skills.

The game is available now as a physical cartridge, so if you’ve ever wanted to experience Jack’s misadventures in pixel form, here’s your chance.

Pick up your copy here!

The game was developed by Andrew Roach (That’s me!) and Elvies EDIT: ROM IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH ITCH.IO free to pay in browser or a $5 download.

And if you’re new to Expedition Sasquatch, you can dive into the podcast at expeditionsasquatch.org. Happy hunting! (Or, more likely, happy getting hopelessly sidetracked.)

How We Did

We didn’t sell out, but we didn’t expect to. This was about meeting people, sharing stories, and celebrating weird little toys. Still, some highlights:

• Our soon to be released Jupiter’s Ghost video game was the surprise top seller (more on that soon!)
• The Super Squishy Monstrous Minis were a hit. They’ll be up online next week for those who missed them
• Plenty of folks picked up copies of The Mysterious Air Pirates magazine (still available here)

The Real Highlight: The People

The best part of any show is the community. We got to catch up with old friends, and make some new ones (Mr. Lobo and Sally the Zombie Cheerleader of OSI74 were in fine form) and meet a ton of amazing artists. The creativity on display was humbling! There was so much talent packed into one room!

The Haul

Of course, I couldn’t leave without bringing home some treasures myself. Here’s a peek at some of the incredible work we picked up:

Kaiju by Greyskull Toys

Aliens by Zimot Toys, and Strawbery man by Grinning Narwhal

Archivists in my pocket and a walking archivist from Archive of Haunts and Sydot Toys.

The Chupacobra by Yoyodyne toys

My Pet Ewok by Greyskull toys, an Adventure Dinosaur by General Porpoise Toys and a portrait of Mr. T by Edwin Salas.

The full spread with many more toys, including our Sky Pirates

What’s Next?

Now that we’re back, it’s time to:

• Pack up orders for Bart, Jacques, and Leyla (shipping starts this week!)
• Get the Super Squishy Monstrous Minis listed online
• Start planning for the next adventure

Huge thanks to everyone who stopped by, chatted, or took home a piece of our weird little world. These shows are exhausting, but they remind me why we do this: the people, the art, and the joy of holding something strange and wonderful in your hands.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a nap.