96 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
96 lines
4.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "content and customisation & like and share buttons"
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published: 2019-06-12
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---
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the point of my ever having a website (including this blog) and my
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writing a book or designing a game or programming something is, above
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all else, the *content* of whatever project it is. all too frequently
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for me, however, i get much too engrossed in the customising my
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product before it is even worthy of the title. instead of writing this
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blog post, i could be making my blog easier on the eyes, giving its
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colours better contrast, spending hours trying to create a favicon, or
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any number of things which i am sure to do in the future, but more
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than any of those things, my blog needs **content**. i do not feel bad
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about waiting until i at least had a mostly functioning blog to
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actually start writing seriously, because having an idea of the
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general layout and formatting tools available to me will no doubt have
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a significant influence in the style in which my posts are written.
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> so why doesn't *this* post make use of those so-called "formatting
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> tools", i hear no one ask so i will answer.
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simply put, because especially at this stage of my blog,
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<big><b>content</b></big> > **customisation**. not too mention a lot
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of what i'm doing is experimenting with what's available to me to use,
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how to use it, and what outcomes my choices will generate.
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## before i bore you to death
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because i feel like there needs to be more to this post, and if i
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touch on more than one topic, i might actually end up interesting more
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of you than i thought plausible.
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### the problem with preambles
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like the one i just wrote, is it can be pretty easy to forget either
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what you were planning on leading into or forgetting how you were
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going to say it. it's a funny little world that way, is it not?
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> *say something interesting or stfu, smeghead*
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you might be saying to yourself. but in the end they are **my**
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monologues, and if i was writing for sake of publicity and one of the
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main addictive aspects of social media, i would have `like` and
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`share` buttons for an array of platforms as well as a comments
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section. i have absolutely zero plans to at any time implement any of
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these things. i do plan on implementing an rss feed, though. and i
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honestly would like to hear if you liked my post, should you read it,
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but it's not why i'm writing it.
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## the like button killed the weblogging star
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on any social media platform, really, be it proprietary shitsites(tm)
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like twitter, facebook, and whatever there is (tumblr? instagram? i
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have never had an account with either so i don't really know what
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they're for, but i have heard the phrase "follow on instagram" so it
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almost definitely qualifies) or decentralised, less-evil,
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freedom-enabling social media such as mastodon, pleroma, or misskey,
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what is more likely to get "up" votes or "likes" or "shares": an
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inspirational quote from someone a lot of people like attached to a
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cute or heartwarming image of anything, ~or~ a post that on its own
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isn't particularly noteworthy and just shares some thoughts about a
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niche interest? obviously the first one. but what if person one only
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ever posted short, snarky, silly, substance-less fluff while person
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two posts what they thought was an interesting take on an idea, or
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reviews of thought-provoking media, or small tutorials on how to
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accomplish something the way they did? person two sounds more
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interesting, but when you are judged on every small snippet of text
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and/or media, you'll be rewarded for posting things that trigger an
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immediate emotional response from the reader, and this has led to many
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things that used to be judged as a whole (the way podcasts usually
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still are and the way blogs and such used to be) instead being judged
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line for line.
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if you liken that to books, the ridiculousness of it
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becomes more self-evident still. you will seldom like every single
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part of a novel, if any. there will be sentences, word choices,
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scenes, or dialogue you wish would have been handled differently. but
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that is normal. and i have a strong belief that when you add the "vote and
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share" memetic norm and being funded through advertising together, the
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sum of the equation is what we know as this fake news epidemic. people
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erroneously expect the things posted by their friends whom they trust
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to have already been fact checked, and so continue spreading lies and
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"news" designed to incite irrational tribalism or raise ad revenue
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through clicks to *their* friends who
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continue this viral propagation of dangerous ideas and fake news, all
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of these people unwittingly becoming part of the problem.
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===
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[unashamed of having an unrevised first draft published, because i
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don't want to have to bother with it. just consider posts like this as
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stream of thought blogging]
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===
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nyaa~
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