For a long time, I’ve wanted to write a series of posts about my thoughts on the modern web. They would be longish-form text with a few images tossed in.
In the old days, I would have just set up a LiveJournal (now: Dreamwidth) account, and posted to that. I might have sent links around to my existing friends, though in this case, my imagined target audience is different than my existing friend group, so I might not have cross-posted links.
But the thing is: Part of the reason I want to write is because I want people to find the content and respond. And I’m no longer sure how to build up those connections — and so I imagine myself leaning on the crutch of recommendations algorithms. “Oh, I should make a Facebook page!”, I think — because if it’s on Facebook, maybe people who I don’t tell about it directly will know.
But of course, that’s mostly bullshit: Absent bringing a starting audience with you, most social media platforms don’t provide you a magic discovery mechanism where you’ll be found by others; there really is no difference between any of these platforms on that front.
I run through this all the time: Do I go with tumblr? With Facebook? With Medium? With Dreamwidth? Where am I going to get the most shares? Is this content better for one platform than another? Etc. etc.
I’m not sure what changed. Is this something that changed in me: Do I feel more intimidated and scared to reach out to new people? Am I unwilling to do the work and engage meaningfully with relevant communities?
Is it something that changed in the world? Is it harder to get people to click through to a link that isn’t on Facebook these days? To read the article, rather than a 27 tweet long thread?
I don’t know how I got to where I am, but I do know this: There are a number of things over the years where I have tried to write them and never felt like I found a good home for them. I wanted some feedback, some sense of connection from them… and never came to the conclusion on where I might get it from.
It feels like a step back from where I was a decade ago, and I wish I knew how to move on from it. But since it’s getting in the way of my writing it at all, it’s time to stop pondering about how to do it and just to write something, anything to get things moving.
So if you look at this little home on the web and go “huh, this is weird”: Yeah, you’re write. But at least I’m writing something.
(This is largely cribbed from an earlier Facebook / blog post; except now I’m actually acting on the idea of doing some of that writing.)