I went to my niece’s high school pantomime this evening. She danced well as a 1920s flapper. I think it was the Charleston, but I’m no expert in dance. I kind of have two left feet in that regard. At the very least it was Charleston adjacent – which looking at a map makes it a Summerville, or maybe a Georgetown.
But crikey, Christmas is looming and I really need to get a wriggle on with my shopping.
After a couple of days of learning-by-doing and troubleshooting I have finally got WordPress up and running, self-hosted on a Raspberry Pi. I’ve had this domain for a while and I reasoned it would be a good idea to use it. So I’m ready to cast my thoughts to the world.
I do have social media, and I’m relying on that as the avenue of discoverability for this blog – Google’s not too flash at that sort of thing now. And the concept of POSSE (Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) appeals to me. I’m able to post a link to my blog entries on social media. With regular backups in place, I am unlikely to lose content to the enshittification or collapse of social media networks.
That said, there’s something retro or maybe even quaint about doing this. Blogs are so web 1.0. And while independent written content is still available through sources like Medium, the fact people pay for it – directly through subscriptions or indirectly through advertising – places the onus on the author to produce constant content at a consistent level of quality. I don’t desire that kind of pressure.
Another thing is that when I was considering this blog and was looking for how-tos, almost all of them were focusing on search-engine optimisation and specialisation to find an audience. But there’s one thing I want to be clear about:
My hobbies are not side-hustles.
In part this is me making a stand against how uniform the internet has become. I’m sure you’ve noticed this too: a typical recreational browsing session might be dominated by Reddit with a bit of YouTube thrown in for good measure. Or it could be staring at Instagram or TikTok for much longer than you planned. In reaction to that, I’ve started discovering the Indieweb – made by enthusiasts who are being the change they want to see. Bringing back diversity to the online experience, rejecting the algorithms designed to keep you engaged and browsing long enough to sell something.
I only hope I have something interesting to say.