You are not annoyed alone

A shared delusion that computers can be lovely.

It starts with a screenshot. Then you’re discussing fonts with someone on another continent. By Friday, you’ve made a plugin.

Omarchy has attracted people who like making their computers feel like their own. They share themes, build little tools, answer questions, and occasionally leave the house to meet one another. Very little of this helps our case against it.

It doesn’t always have to be political.

You can enjoy a piece of software without adopting everyone else’s opinions. You can like a terminal, disagree about an editor, help someone with a bug, and still have had a perfectly good afternoon.

Sometimes the exciting bit is that a stranger made something useful and let you have it. Sometimes it’s that your old laptop feels interesting again. We think there’s room for that.

The screenshot is how they get you

You post your desktop because you finally like looking at it. Somebody asks which theme it is. You send a link. They suggest a plugin. You try it, discover a small bug, and mention it to the person who made it. A day later there is a fix. This is a lot of human cooperation to arise from wanting a slightly nicer clock.

Before long, you recognise a few names. One person makes particularly good themes. Another seems to know why your audio device is doing that. Somebody is building a thing you cannot imagine needing, and then you use it every day. The computer starts to feel less like a sealed product and more like something people are working on together.

You can participate at a normal volume

Not every contribution has to be a framework, a manifesto, or a forty-minute video. A clear bug report helps. A screenshot showing the setting someone cannot find helps. So does saying thank you when a volunteer spends their evening untangling your problem.

You can also just use the software and have a pleasant time. There is no minimum number of pull requests before you are allowed to enjoy your desktop. We checked with the imaginary membership committee. They were busy choosing fonts.