1990, but with YouTube | year 1990 behind the scenes

As this project is taking shape, at last, I feel I can relax just a little bit.

.
Although I am obviously still clueless as to what I’m doing, making myself travel back in time and rebuilding a life for an 18 year old Lauren, in a world that effectively no longer exists;
I do feel the understanding of it has deepened this past month or so.

In the previous post in this series I came up with four goals, which I will be including below every post.

It’s not just having goals now, it’s also seeing people around me working on the same topic:
Understanding our online consumption needs to be dealt with.
And in a big and lifechanging way.

Ultimately I want to have more to say about living in the past than it being solely an offline experience, but at least for now, my path is parallel to everybody who has made it their mission to break the habit of being chronically online, or even the habit, sec, to be online.
That being online should by definition not be a habit, but an intentional choice, weighed against ones values and protocol around their online use.

That it is the “habit” of internet use itself, more than the amount we end up using it, that we are now tackling.
Not quite collectively, I don’t see us en masse moving offline, but it’s definitely a movement, and it’s gaining momentum.

For this first bit, the 2025 setup months where I figure this project out, my first steps on an entire new timeline 35 years ago, and all these other people wanting their time and consciousness back;
We’re in the same boat.

And that has been comforting, in particular because the timelines will start to split. And I have no idea how friendships and relationships develop, when one person has decided to pretend they live in 1990.
So I enjoy this early beginning, where it has increased my feeling of sharing the same experience. A feeling of connection.
And not lessened it, as I suspect will be happening in the future.

But I have become aware of an aspect of being online, that is proving to be too deeply rooted to erase right now: YouTube.
I watch it when I do the dishes, or am brushing my teeth. Or when one of the cats wants to cuddle in a way that will not even allow for me to hold a book.

Ultimately, I want these still-watching-YouTube activities to have that quiet and quirky peace that feels almost like the 70s!
Very, very ancient, but I was still a child then, so of course I was feeling different.
But the feeling of the 70s definitely illustrates how foreign it feels to me, to be doing these things without YouTube.
(although I occasionally do, when I’m feeling very strong and happy)

But my real endgame, the moment I feel Project 1990 is getting somewhere, is to have a peaceful mind.
Something which I always had in the 20th century.

I never had internal dialogue, nor did I feel I had to keep thinking about things, nor analyze them. I was the perfect In The Now child, teen and adult.
Not just in the 20th century (of course) but I think I was actually fine all the way up until 2016!

Making this first chunk of trying to untie myself from my YouTube screen, really only that first part of the journey.
Time-traveling the recent history of bringing myself back just 9 years, to the mental quiet of 2016.

It is tempting to get irritated by that, and just ditch YouTube on full willpower. But I really feel that would take me so much effort, it would jeopardize the entire undertaking.
I need to take this slow, because the shift will happen from the inside out.

One day I will wake up, and be done with watching YouTube during those activities when 1990-Me would not be having a screen either.

But I’m choosing to save my energy for other things, not wanting to be pulling all my resources from other areas, just to make this happen.

The final months of this year, I’ll be living in 1990;
But with YouTube.

..
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

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About: the 1990 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1990.
This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

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