Henrik Henrission has this celebrated essay: A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox
(At the time of posting, this was one of an infinite number of tabs languishing half read in my phone browser. Iām not referring to the contents of the blog, but rather responding to the title alone).
Iāve been posting on this website for a year now, and I havenāt actually had interesting things in my inbox as a result of my blogs. However, this HAS been my experience with social media. When I was active on twitter (2018-2020) I was constantly getting DMs from people I didnāt know, with opinions or solutions for things I was curious about. I didnāt have to think about a posting schedule the way people do with SEO. I was just active, and consistent, and like magic I had an audience (and people in my inbox).
There are many things wrong with twitter (when people would tell me they know me from twitter I would instinctively apologise!) but that feeling of access, and knowing someone, is undeniable. Community is very important to me, and I feel like Iāve been fairly successful in building it over the last few years - physically. When I got off twitter mid-pandemic, I lost that online community and without it, I feel a little incomplete.
I was able to build community physically by being very intentional about it. In my home, I made spaces for people to sit, and to work from. I put out an ashtray even if I donāt smoke. I put guides for the shower and spare toothbrushes in the other room. I stock oatmilk I donāt drink. Itās easy to make a home inviting because I live there! But I donāt live on this blog - I live in my website framework and my writing app and my linear board. Other people visit this blog, sure, but they mostly see me in their emails or their rss feeds.
I didnāt have to think about building community with twitter - I just posted! Consistency is easy when youāre doing drugs. I was young, dumb, and inflammatory enough that I didnāt need to think about ābest time to postā because the algorithm always worked for me. I suppose, when thereās no algorithm, I am going to have to be a lot more intentional about how I create online community.
(links go to my linear board)
[ ] better typography so people are invited to take a seat and read
[ ] a dark mode so people can do this where they want
[ ] comments
[ ] a footer!
[ ] more experiments, and things that bring joy. Audio on clicks, and cursor magic, and sunset backgrounds.
[ ] respond to the emails people send to me (sorry Mihir and Anik š
)
I canāt go back to using social media the way I used to because it is simply unhealthy for my brain. But I enjoyed so much about it - the joy of posting, not having to introduce myself, having an archive of silliness, and even the parasocial relationships.
In ten years, I want people to open this website to develop a relationship with me.