are we bloggers the chumps
it's a popular sentiment on bear blog that the wider world of social media is... bad; that engagement-maximizing algorithms and the posts they inspire people to make are addicting, enraging, misleading, and dividing us. sentiment can only go so far so I was glad to read The Case Against Social Media is Stronger Than You Think (via Platformer) recently, which ties together a lot of sources and research to make the case: posts with negative emotions spread further, disproportionately many come from a tiny and extreme sliver of posters, and this has real-world effects.
yet, disliking social mediaâs effects on the world doesnât necessarily mean you should quit it. the case is a rebuttal; it has to reconcile its argument with evidence that groups who already use little social media and individuals who experimentally opt out donât see better outcomes. the key, it argues, is âspillover effectsâ â even if I opt out, I still interact with friends and acquaintances who are on social media, and I still consume other forms of media that have been shaped by social media and its incentives. given that I donât like the way those forces are pulling, perhaps I should actually stay on those platforms and try to exert my influence in the opposite direction? by retreating to my tiny blog and writing for a minimal audience, am I⌠giving up?
in framing that question, am I not already falling into the social media platformsâ trap? Iâd be adopting the goal theyâre trying to trick me into adopting with every dopamine-filled notification bubble they surface â equating success with reaching a large audience. I donât have to do that. I can define success on my own terms; thereâs no inherent reason to consider a blog post with five views unsuccessful and a viral tweet with a thousand views successful.
but why do I write except for my words to reach readers? I donât believe in blogging for the sake of blogging because I put the words I donât want others to read in my private journal. influence is not just essays that try to convince somebody of a thesis statement. sharing knowledge is a form of influence, a bid for the reader to learn that fact instead of the thousands of others they might be encountering at any given moment. telling a happy story thatâs hyperspecifically about my life with zero application to anybody else is still an attempt to influence my reader to be happier. whatâs objectionable about that?
but the format and virality of my post isnât a free variable I can change independently of the kind of influence itâll have on any given reader. tweets can go viral because theyâre short and punchy â because theyâre easy for somebody to read, understand, and smash the retweet button on. my discursive, hedgy posts where I constantly second-guess myself wouldnât go viral even if I were able to transplant them onto a platform with a repost button. I also have enough personal experience to know I shouldnât underestimate the influence on myself either. what stops my posts from becoming those I rail against, the way Iâve seen so many people Iâve admired? what stops them from crowding out the complicated ideas I want space for in my brain? how do I know Iâm above the corruption of the engagement metrics?
itâs fair to have doubt about that, but I also know a lot of people I donât consider to have been corrupted, and going into it clear-eyed like this, I would hope to be probably! I know how computers work, there are things I can do to mitigate it! I can hide the notification numbers from myself with uBlock origin.
do I hear myself? modifying my browser to temper the platformâs sway on me? the platform itself is actively hostile to me and my goals. it doesnât make sense to try to win at my own game while following their rules.
itâs true i donât expect to âperform wellâ compared to anybody actually trying to do that, and i donât want to aim to do that. but itâs not an either-or, iâm not going to stop my longform posting or forsake its longwinded nature, targeting the small sliver of people like myself, extreme in their own way in their preferences. why not both? iâd generally much prefer a un-nuanced post in the direction I agree with over an un-nuanced post in the opposing direction, and for that surely i can feign lack of nuance for a few words. all the worldâs a stage.
sure, ceteris paribus it would be great if I could wave a wand and manifest an additional shortform version of every post I make onto my local microblogging site, but havenât I tried this already? when my simple thought turned into 300 characters when I typed it out? itâs not a skill I have
and itâs a skill i can develop, and itâs a skill that would be useful for me to develop! itâs a tradeoff I need to learn to make! growth mindset, yadda yadda. the dumbest possible plan is that it can be a title and a link to the full post here; thatâs something a wand can manifest. it wonât perform well, but again, who cares? I think I have this illusory belief that every true fan (by which I mean something like the people all this posting is Really For, who will click with it; I don't expect or want fans of myself per se) is going to be willing to refresh my blog daily or wield an rss reader. as nice as it would be to live in that world, in reality itâs a big jump for many â habits are hard to form! meet them halfway, is all iâm saying. silently boycotting platforms on my own doesnât do anything.
but do I think the would-be true fans are in fact using twitter/bluesky/whatever today, stuck in the same paradox I am? isnât it more likely theyâve quit social media entirely? remember again the platform itself is hostile. I can come up with a galaxybrain explanation for why I, personally, should ignore that and forge ahead, but the rest of them probably quit and never looked back
I don't know where red and blue are going with this. They could probably keep going for a while, but we're solidly in the stretch where the perfect is the enemy of the good, and it's past bedtime.