The Painful, Long-Foretold, and Now Actual Death of Ello

Ello has died so many times I’ve lost count. It was positively a feature of the platform, a kind of memetic doomsaying that would get passed around by users until they couldn’t take it any more and flounced. Others simply vanished, quietly, their pages suddenly gone, or remaining unchanged in perpetuity.

But T, you say, Isn’t that just social media?

I mean, maybe? I don’t really know because I hate social media and avoid it.

And you say: Uhhh … wasn’t Ello social media?

I mean … yes. Technically it was. But it was quite different.

First, almost no one knew it existed. So there’s a hidden-in-plain-sight quality to it.

Second, a large swath of the people who knew about it didn’t understand how to use it—like, literally didn’t know how to make a post, edit a post, add a link. They just didn’t get the site on a fundamental level. And a third group maybe understood how to perform the basic functions but didn’t get the ‘point’ of the site. That one was always funny to me because social media is quite obviously one of humanity’s more pointless inventions—at least, as it’s used by most folks in ‘Murica. I’m not talking about the Arab Spring, here, m’kay. I mean, they’re basically voluntarily citizen registration sites that reward you with … ads. Yay capitalism!

Anyway, Ello had no ads. Of any kind. In fact when they started to push featured posts in notifications, I complained (cos me), and they added an option to disable them in less than a month.

So what did it have? People, most of whom where there in anonymity or pseudonymity (such as myself), and there was a realness that emerged from that.

Now, don’t get it twisted: There was drama. A lot of drama, though the worst of it was already over when I got there about a year after launch in 2015. I could do a whole post about my first few months on Ello and all the detective work I did backreading entire accounts in some cases to try and piece together all the crazy shit that had gone down. But it was already done, really. And because of that, you had folks saying it was dead. Dead because drama is life, apparently.

But it wasn’t dead! Not even a little. I entered into a highly productive period as a writer and editor and met a ton of cool people, many of whom I still talk to everyday.

I will eventually tell the specifics of my time there and the history of the writing community, Ellowrites, that welcomed me and was eventually turned over to me. But for now, know there was a writing community (founded by Ksenia Anske), and it was pretty great.

I wrote a piece about Ello. It’s a vague impressionistic fiction, but it’s based on real emotion and perception. (If you wanna read it, see below.) And the fabu Ellinor Kall wrote about the death of Ello a few years before the site actually died. (You can read that here.)

It was a weird place—as many of you know cos, like me, you were there. But it was also quite special. The design was staunchly minimalist, which while the butt of many jokes, also made everything clean and showcased each post rather than cluttering it with ugly UI junk. (Except for the buy button. Jfc, that thing was ugly as sin.) It had a waterfall style that broke often and then completely, so you really couldn’t see more than a page worth of posts on any given account. There was a bit of a hack for that—a glitch that was really a feature that let you load account pages by date. But eventually that got rid of it because—according to the only developer who would talk to us—they didn’t realize people found it useful. We told them we did, but it never came back.

There was one last push about a year ago, led by a cool person named Jess, to save the site. But she left. The company didn’t tell us that. As usual, we had to play detective and figure it out for ourselves. And then it just … died. An inch at a time, until it was completely gone.

Anyway, if you are yourself a displaced Ellovian, you can always hang out here with me in the comments, on Substack Notes, by email, or over on Tumblr (there are not one but two Ello communities there now—one modded by Matthew Schiavello, the other by Nova Express. I’m also on Vero social (like a couple of you are) and now Bluesky! (Many thanks, Luke!) Please stay in touch! And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you get situated in one or more of these new virtch places.

Here’s to Ello, the dream that never quite was. We did. We went down with the ship. Gone, but not forgotten. And, more importantly, here’s to the friendships we made and will continue on long after its demise.

Xoxo,

T

Here is what I wrote about my experience of Ello. Take it as a sort of ouroboros eulogy, if you will.

“Hollo Tropic Topic” by T. Van Santana

I will try to explain it. To you.

It’s a vast white. Not a waste, as it looked at first. Just space and symbols.

Then comes her voice, stylish and kind, welcoming me and waving.

There is a slow tide, low and rhythmic, making me feel safe. But I can’t show my face. Only peek. People start to see me, through my words, maybe better and clearer than those who know my face, my whole face, my plain face that I hide behind.

And the words flow, and it feels good. Feels good to share with this place and to know new souls like mine and feel one at last.

Then there’s the cast of shadows. It’s eschatological and burnt, large husks cast around, and no talk of it. I poke about, nosey asshole that I am, and turn up hints and clues, stories of civil war and bloody strife. I tread lightly because I love this place and these people. All of them. Even those who don’t care for me.

Slowly, drips turn to pools, and pools form structures and the dried riverbeds lead to the underground. The deep. There’s a different kind of vibe, wonderful and rich. And dark. People eat each other.

I call out to the ones beyond the white expanse, those back in the world of flesh and metal and problems unrelated to life in the vast. They can’t find their way. Can’t get through. Only some feel the pull, and a very few of us follow it.

There are fires burning underground and succulent growth on the surface. What’s below hates what’s above. Resents its light. The surface seems oblivious or purposefully indifferent. There are those, too, who know about both. The scarlet in-between. No one wants to talk about it.

Up on the clouds are those who can’t touch the ground. I can’t know them, so it’s just confusing to me. Why do they scorn the earth they created? What will they drop from the sky?

There are, too, those who walk in many skins, seeming many lives and thoughts but all are one, and summed less than those who wear a single face. The game’s the thing, wearing masks for mask’s sake. The masters of this game are forever on its edges, pouring through the cracks, seeping and soaking up. I stay away.

There’s a message in a tree for me that leads to a pocketed place, aside the vast. It’s fun, but too fast for me. And there’s more of the same. Face on face. Old wounds ripped open, made fresh. I can’t take it, even though it doesn’t involve me, even though I like what I see. I go back to the white expanse and find the underground collapsed. Caved in by bombers and sealed in wax by seeping dissociative ooze. And that’s the end of that. No more trips down there.

The surface is changed but rolls on, as it has. Happy days are coming, they say.

The clouds still storm and rain gold and shit from the sky, falling on dry, blank earth in little dark shapes.

I love this place, strange as is it.

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