About this site

Plasticbag.org is a weblog site run by Tom Coates. If you don't know what a weblog is, then you should read this: What the is this site for? If you don't know who Tom Coates is, then you should probably read this: Who the hell is Tom Coates?

FAQs

Why on earth 'plasticbag.org'?
What the hell is this site for?
Who the hell is Tom Coates?

Footprints

If you wanted to buy me something, you could do so at my wishlist. I've won Best European Weblog (twice) and Best Gay Weblogger once. I made a little image to celebrate. If you wanted to read some of my professional film reviews, then go to the BBC. I'm a card in Web Trumps. You can watch me spin around on a mountain-top a la Sound of Music (pop-up).

Credits

Pencils and Inks by Tom Coates, after a structure by Jason Kottke and incorporating design elements co-created by Tom Coates and Denise Wilton. Colours and finishes by Tom Coates.

Why on earth 'plasticbag.org'?

I get a surprising amount of questions about the name of my site, but the answer is quite simple. Like so many other people who own their own domains, it was simply the best I could come up with at the time. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning...

When the web was young and firm and supple, before the inevitable slow decline and back problems of recent years, I was assembling sites for fun in my spare time. Most of these sites were positioned on my free web space that I got with my ISP. Most of them weren't very good. But I enjoyed the process enormously. And when the day came to assemble my first detailed and structured fan site, I considered myself up to the challenge.

I'd like to say that the site in question was The Bomb, but unfortunately it wasn't. However it was the bomb that finally let me to buy my first domain name. I was nervous of the potential cost of running a site, so I wanted a name with a variety of potential uses - not something that was too descriptive, but something gestural and allusive. I chose barbelith.com, which I thought would be perfect for the Invisibles fan site, but which also had a nicely weighty feel to it.

But when I'd finished the Invisibles site, and built a community part onto the site called The Nexus, I found myself with a whole front-end to the site with nothing on it. What would I do with this space? And then I stumbled upon weblogs...

Anyway - a year or so later, it started to become very clear that the weblog and the community were outgrowing each other's company and should part. The decision to move the weblog was tremendously difficult, but it had to be done. I'd lose all the familiarity people had with the name in the move. And I had to think of another bloody domain name...

I spent months thinking about a good domain to buy, and I went through a few alternatives before I settled on plasticbag.org - some of which sold out from under me. Reptilebrain.com was one of those. The reptile brain is the ancient leftover from our reptile cousins that handles basic aggression, ideas of territory and some parts of sex. I thought that a site based on personal urges couldn't possibly have a better name than that.

The decision to go with the image of plastic bags was another gradual development. I kept thinking about what I thought of the medium of weblogging - it's modernity, it's transience - the sheer disposability of the content. This kind of modern prefab culture seemed iconically represented in the humble plastic bag. It seemed ideal...

What I didn't realise of course was that a film had just been released in America that would take the image of the plastic bag to completely new levels. The bouncing, bobbing bag of American Beauty was completely unknown to me at that stage. And when I had seen the film I decided to incorporate some of the sense of the film into the iconography of the site. My tagline became, "Making Magic out of the Mundane" - and became focused around the idea that there was beauty in the trivia of our lives. Particularly my life.

It's been almost three years since I started this weblog, and over two I believe since I moved over to this domain. I get bored of the site sometimes, and then occasionally I find it tremendously exciting. Almost always it's useful - and I like the structure it imposes on my life. The phrase plasticbag.org now pours out of my fingers when I'm typing, as if it was embedded in my primordial brain. And I think it still represents some of what I try to do with this place - successfully or otherwise...

And coates.com was unavailable.

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