Stomping the brainweasels
Jan. 28th, 2019 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSo a perfectly lovely person posted a request for cut-tags on long posts, and happened to give an unfortunate example of the kind of thing they scroll past. It's pretty clear they weren't actually aiming at me, because I do in fact cut almost all my posts, but I've got suddenly self-conscious.
I want to post about my hobbies, but I shouldn't because that's boring to people who don't share my hobbies. I want to post about politics, but I shouldn't, because some people who disagree with me politically may be offended. I want to post about community stuff, but I shouldn't because most of my readers aren't Jewish and some of them really dislike reading about religion. I want to do a meme, but I shouldn't because people want original, personal content on their reading pages. I want to post something personal, but I shouldn't, because most people here aren't my personal friends and only want to read about ideas, not what's in my head. I want to post about my holidays, but I shouldn't because that's boring and alienating and offensive. I want to post an interesting, thinky essay but I ... can't. Not when I'm stuck on worrying about whether the topic is universally interesting and whether I can write well enough.
This is all nonsense, of course. I've been keeping what is essentially an online journal since 2003, and it's mainly for me, much as I love it when other people read and comment. I know full well that the only way I ever have the momentum to post interesting essays is if I regularly keep up writing about trivial things. I am already putting in a reasonable amount of effort not to make it deathly boring for everybody else. Simple descriptive text and content warnings where applicable is a good enough way of doing cuts; nobody is actually expecting me to grovel about how terribly boring my posts are and how I barely deserve to exist so please forgive me for putting this crap on the internet at all, but at least it's behind a cut so you don't have to read it. Followingsiderea's long-ago but very solid advice I try to include more links when I don't have time and energy to create my own high quality original content. But mostly I just post stuff so that it's a regular habit and I feel in touch with people and try not to let myself get intimidated.
So I'm mostly thinking aloud here because I know the brainweasels are wrong. I know that the kind, considerate person I'm thinking of would never have meant their reasonable reminder about cuts to set me thinking that my posts are not just boring, but clutter which actively gets in the way of people reading stuff they want to read. I know there's no point trying to be all things to all people. Some people really need cuts, particularly if they have cognitive issues and other neurodivergences. Some people really hate cuts, especially if they're trying to read the internet on devices and connections which are inadequate to lots of clicks and extra page loads, or indeed inadequate for someone who doesn't have ideal, pain-free mobility. In this case of clashing access needs, as well as opposing preferences, I do use cuts, partly because unwanted cuts feel less intrusive than unwanted visibility, and partly because there's a setting to "Display full content of cut entries" ie override cuts if you don't like them.
That goes for topic choice as well. All topics are boring to some people and most topics are potentially distressing to at least some people. And volume is the same; for ages people didn't bother with DW because it's too quiet here, it feels dead, there's not enough varied content to hold their interest. But since December and the influx of new and returning users, there's too much, people can't keep up with their reading pages, and that puts people off too. I am beginning to suspect that there was never really a golden age of LJ, that's just a chimera. There was a time in the mid-2000s when about three quarters of my main in person social circle had accounts, and that was lovely in a way, but I don't think DW in 2019 is worse than LJ in 2005, it's just different. LJ went from being horribly unreliable and awkward to use, to being overloaded with horrible intrusive adverts, to being sold to a Russian company and tangled up in weird politics. And there was always too much or too little drama or fandom or bigotry or political correctness or whatever.
We all say we want a chronological feed of all the content, but actually we secretly want exactly the right amount of exactly the things we want to see. And algorithms like FB's and Twitter's try to provide that, and people hate missing their friends' stuff in favour of nonsense with higher advertising value, but actually, most people are more comfortable with FB's (badly) curated feed than with seeing everything.
So I'm pretty sure, brainweasels notwithstanding, that the right thing to do is to keep posting whatever I feel like talking about, and label stuff as clearly as I can and make sure I'm not pressuring anyone to read anything. The balance will sort itself out by people using filters and skimming the boring stuff and unsubscribing if my posts are mostly a negative for them. (I am never offended if you want to unsubscribe; even if we're offline friends I completely understand that my posts are long-winded and annoying to some people, and that's fine.)
A bunch of DW power users were very eager to welcome the newbies from Tumblr, and posted technical guides and discussions of DW etiquette. I would have been one of them a few years ago, most likely. Anyway, there was kind of a backlash because some of the new people resented being told what to do, or were intimidated by all the apparently complex requirements. So the collective have come up with the idea of making February shitposting month. Lots of really cool ideas around that concept! I'm not really confident with shitposting as a genre, but I'm going to make February the month of posting whatever. (In my case it's more likely to be over-long posts than short trivial or silly posts, but you never know.) The point is that I'm going to break out of this cycle of, what if my posts are too boring and annoying and cluttery, and therefore never posting anything.
I am not especially looking for reassurance here, but if you do want to reassure me, please don't tell me I'm not boring. I am boring at least some of the time, even the best writers are boring to people who don't share their interests or don't like their style. I think what I want to hear is that it's ok to be boring, that it's not better to just shut up and never bother other people.
I want to post about my hobbies, but I shouldn't because that's boring to people who don't share my hobbies. I want to post about politics, but I shouldn't, because some people who disagree with me politically may be offended. I want to post about community stuff, but I shouldn't because most of my readers aren't Jewish and some of them really dislike reading about religion. I want to do a meme, but I shouldn't because people want original, personal content on their reading pages. I want to post something personal, but I shouldn't, because most people here aren't my personal friends and only want to read about ideas, not what's in my head. I want to post about my holidays, but I shouldn't because that's boring and alienating and offensive. I want to post an interesting, thinky essay but I ... can't. Not when I'm stuck on worrying about whether the topic is universally interesting and whether I can write well enough.
This is all nonsense, of course. I've been keeping what is essentially an online journal since 2003, and it's mainly for me, much as I love it when other people read and comment. I know full well that the only way I ever have the momentum to post interesting essays is if I regularly keep up writing about trivial things. I am already putting in a reasonable amount of effort not to make it deathly boring for everybody else. Simple descriptive text and content warnings where applicable is a good enough way of doing cuts; nobody is actually expecting me to grovel about how terribly boring my posts are and how I barely deserve to exist so please forgive me for putting this crap on the internet at all, but at least it's behind a cut so you don't have to read it. Following
siderea's long-ago but very solid advice I try to include more links when I don't have time and energy to create my own high quality original content. But mostly I just post stuff so that it's a regular habit and I feel in touch with people and try not to let myself get intimidated. So I'm mostly thinking aloud here because I know the brainweasels are wrong. I know that the kind, considerate person I'm thinking of would never have meant their reasonable reminder about cuts to set me thinking that my posts are not just boring, but clutter which actively gets in the way of people reading stuff they want to read. I know there's no point trying to be all things to all people. Some people really need cuts, particularly if they have cognitive issues and other neurodivergences. Some people really hate cuts, especially if they're trying to read the internet on devices and connections which are inadequate to lots of clicks and extra page loads, or indeed inadequate for someone who doesn't have ideal, pain-free mobility. In this case of clashing access needs, as well as opposing preferences, I do use cuts, partly because unwanted cuts feel less intrusive than unwanted visibility, and partly because there's a setting to "Display full content of cut entries" ie override cuts if you don't like them.
That goes for topic choice as well. All topics are boring to some people and most topics are potentially distressing to at least some people. And volume is the same; for ages people didn't bother with DW because it's too quiet here, it feels dead, there's not enough varied content to hold their interest. But since December and the influx of new and returning users, there's too much, people can't keep up with their reading pages, and that puts people off too. I am beginning to suspect that there was never really a golden age of LJ, that's just a chimera. There was a time in the mid-2000s when about three quarters of my main in person social circle had accounts, and that was lovely in a way, but I don't think DW in 2019 is worse than LJ in 2005, it's just different. LJ went from being horribly unreliable and awkward to use, to being overloaded with horrible intrusive adverts, to being sold to a Russian company and tangled up in weird politics. And there was always too much or too little drama or fandom or bigotry or political correctness or whatever.
We all say we want a chronological feed of all the content, but actually we secretly want exactly the right amount of exactly the things we want to see. And algorithms like FB's and Twitter's try to provide that, and people hate missing their friends' stuff in favour of nonsense with higher advertising value, but actually, most people are more comfortable with FB's (badly) curated feed than with seeing everything.
So I'm pretty sure, brainweasels notwithstanding, that the right thing to do is to keep posting whatever I feel like talking about, and label stuff as clearly as I can and make sure I'm not pressuring anyone to read anything. The balance will sort itself out by people using filters and skimming the boring stuff and unsubscribing if my posts are mostly a negative for them. (I am never offended if you want to unsubscribe; even if we're offline friends I completely understand that my posts are long-winded and annoying to some people, and that's fine.)
A bunch of DW power users were very eager to welcome the newbies from Tumblr, and posted technical guides and discussions of DW etiquette. I would have been one of them a few years ago, most likely. Anyway, there was kind of a backlash because some of the new people resented being told what to do, or were intimidated by all the apparently complex requirements. So the collective have come up with the idea of making February shitposting month. Lots of really cool ideas around that concept! I'm not really confident with shitposting as a genre, but I'm going to make February the month of posting whatever. (In my case it's more likely to be over-long posts than short trivial or silly posts, but you never know.) The point is that I'm going to break out of this cycle of, what if my posts are too boring and annoying and cluttery, and therefore never posting anything.
I am not especially looking for reassurance here, but if you do want to reassure me, please don't tell me I'm not boring. I am boring at least some of the time, even the best writers are boring to people who don't share their interests or don't like their style. I think what I want to hear is that it's ok to be boring, that it's not better to just shut up and never bother other people.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-28 09:36 pm (UTC)I mean, I do try to be mildly considerate on my own journal about cuts, tags, and warning for some content, but ultimately, we all can curate our own internewt experience by stopping if we're not having fun.