A blog? In this economy?
Like all of us, I’ve had a mixed relationship with social media. It has opened up my world both socially and professionally, and has given me a creative outlet, as well as a void to yell into, one that often yells back. But, also like all of us, the list of negative effects it had on me are just as long and just as impactful.
I was a young man during the Friendster/MySpace days. I published many many embarrassing blog entries, all of which I am so very grateful have been deleted. I am normally a proponent of saving online communities for prosperity, but this time it’s for the best. My Facebook account lasted from 2006 to 2007, at which time I realized that I did not need a firehose of information about what every acquaintance I knew was doing.
The early halcyon days of Twitter were pretty much perfect. It was a period of about two or three years where the community of local tweeters was under a few hundred people. There were literally open invitation Twitter meet-ups that were held in the back rooms of local pubs. But Twitter grew and evolved, and while I had a lot of fun with it, it eventually felt like I needed to excise myself—even before that open sore of a human bought it. I retain my old account just so I can easily view shared links
Today the only social media site where I maintain an active presence is Instagram. It’s a place for me to easily post my arty phone photos, share memes with pals in DMs, and for the world to appreciate my derpy cat. (Clem)
And now, I guess you can find me here.
I’ve been finding myself wanting to post, but without a desire to dive into tweeting again, or to start a bluesky or threads account. The fact is, I don’t think I need people to actually read what I’m posting, I just need a place to get my thoughts down, and a way to catalogue things in a way that’s easily shared. For instance, the first entry on this blog is a recipe that I send to pals regularly. It just needed a home. (Greek Steakhouse-Style Baked Pasta)
I absolutely hate ads. I have to create them for work, and guess what, I hate doing that too. As long as a site pushes someone else’s ads next to my stuff, my ownership of that stuff is compromised. Not to mention the terms of service agreements one has to agree to just to use those services. It makes me feel good knowing that I can share my thoughts and creations somewhere that won’t be bookended by entities looking to claw our wealth and personal creations away from us.
If you’ve read this far, you may have noticed there’s no comment section here. (or maybe not, if that’s not something you care about) This isn’t a place for discussion. If you want to talk about something you’ve read here, find me somewhere else. To clumsily paraphrase David Bowie, this ain’t a venue for discussion, this is anti-social media. (image source, Reddit)