Published 2025-05-13
tag(s): #meta #failures #smallweb
The order of the tags match each of the items in the title.
I was away for a few days, with no access to a keyboard, and a couple times I felt a bit of a
pull to write down my thoughts.
There are some (a lot, really) of habits that I mean to pick up. But writing seems to be the
only one sticking right now. I can't say I don't like it.
For starters, I simply enjoy writing. Sometimes I feel a bit ashamed that I don't ever write
in Spanish, but I know it will come, eventually.
The sound of the keyboard, the thoughts that used to just vanish but now are "hey I should
write about that", all wonderful things.
And in the last few weeks, I got a couple hints of online acknowledgment. Including an email
from a person I never heard of, commenting that my feed was broken.[1]
This helped me overcome some sense of...insecurity? or maybe shame? So I shared a couple links
with friends that didn't know yet that I had a site, which in turn led positive comments.
And that felt good, and of course it is extra motivation to keep writing. I guess we all are
susceptible to a little vanity. Or at least, feeling seen, maybe even understood.
How those feelings relate, probably a topic for another day.
I don't have all the details on what happened in Fosstodon, a Mastodon instance.
I had just started following a blog[2], when the guy suddenly closed it.
And it took me a couple more days to realize this event was related to stuff I kept seeing
mentioned in semi-cryptic posts here and there.
Drama? In a social network?
Eventually I did find some more information. But the way these posts were written, paragraph after paragraph of accusations and righteousness, just reading them was exhausting.
And then, the same realization I get sometimes when I catch myself wasting time on reddit or
instagram hit me: "I don't need to read all this...what am I doing with my
time and attention???".
Curiosity and nosiness got the best of me. (AKA "ser chusma" 🇦🇷), but really, there's a reason
I created a Mastodon account and deleted it a couple weeks later without using: I am having a
hard time quitting whatever social crap I still use, why add more?
And more important, what makes anyone think these new networks won't degenerate in the same
type of toxic places the others turned into? Some time ago I said the same about Bluesky.
There is something dehumanizing about having a gigantic public forum, that eventually makes it
regress to the lowest common denominator: the loudest people take over.
Unless you have strict rules. But that has the potential to kill the community/discourse...it
is a difficult problem,
as I ruminated recently.
In contrast, the small web offers a more personal, paused contact. I can take time to reply to an email, take the time to edit my posts (I honestly don't do that much, so I end up correcting grammar mistakes after publishing 🙃). Where there's time to reflect, there's also time to consider that differing opinions exist, that not everyone agrees with you. Celebrate the differences, rather than expect everyone to think as we do.
Am I romanticizing having a blog and an email address? Maybe. But I have had those small conversations here and there since I started blogging. I find them stimulating, and more fulfilling than quick exchanges in social media. Yes, I can't reply "on the go", I need to sit down and have my keyboard handy, with more intent...and that is a good thing.
Speaking of socials, here is a story...the first weekend of May, the kiddo and I went to the DC United-Colorado Rapids match.[3]
We had a blast! It was nice to visit another MLS stadium, see live football, and DC is a fun
place.
While driving back, I asked Juan "hey, do you mind if I post some of our pictures on my
site?". He said that not at all, he was OK. (same when I asked about publishing photos for the
about page I never wrote).
Interestingly, I never once asked him if he was OK with sharing pics on Instagram or
Facebook. I know some people cover their kids faces, or only get pictures from their backs. I
honestly always found this a bit exaggerated.
But going back to our exchange... why now I had to ask him if he was OK? I thought a
bit about this since then.
My conclusion so far, is that sharing pictures on Instagram feels less personal than posting
them here.
My instagram account has my real name, and it is followed by a bunch of
people[4]. This site has my real name, and I have no idea how many people
read it.
So, logically, the """reach""" of this thing is less than that of my Instagram. So that's not
what makes it more personal. But still, that's how it feels.
The acute reader will notice that I still haven't posted more about the trip. In part this is
because I was away this last weekend, too.
But also, I still don't know if I want to 🤷, since I haven't completely solved
the why I have that feeling of exposure about doing it...