the horror of too many readers
In a previous incarnation on Bear blog, I wrote a couple of posts that ended up on the Discover Trending feed. One post even got up to number 5 on the top 20 page, and as you can imagine, the number of views for that post shot up. Also, the number of likes, or toasts as they call them here, was suddenly huge. (I am using huge there to describe a number more than 50, and once over 100, which was huge for me)
But strangely perhaps to some, I wasn't properly comfortable each time it happened at all. I mean, it is thrilling at first—'Wow, people are reading, and liking it' and all that—but then the introverted, private and the not very social—possibly even paranoid—part of my brain pipes up.
"Wow, loads of people are reading that, total strangers now know exactly what you are thinking. Are you sure that's a good thing?"
Of course it's a good thing, that's why I wrote it, isn't it?
"Yebbut, normally there's only a handful of readers, if that. "
True. But they don't really know me, they only know the bit about me that I've written in the post, and even then, I'm not here under my real name or anything.
"It's a rocky road. People will be emailing and contacting you on your social media. Perhaps they'll be wanting to share similar experience themselves, or thinking they understand you now and you're some sort of friend, and then where will you be?"
Umm.. panicked. Maybe feeling I have to reply, and appear wise, witty and clever, and agonising about the wording of even short and simple replies for hours, and trying to make out I've got it together and I'm a nice guy.
"Exactly. You don't do your blogging to be doing nice guy, do you?"
Not really, no. Mastodon/Fediverse is different. That's conversation—or at least you expect a conversation, not that I'm really very good at that either. Bear blog appealed to me for many reasons, but high up was because there weren't comments. People could react to my writing on the blog if they liked, from the other side of the screen and unseen by me, but I don't really have to know what they thought and consider their feelings and things. As soon as that happens, I feel a bit... well, odd. Vulnerable. Insecure.
"Yet you write and post stuff on a blog that is there on the internet for anybody to see. Oh, and you added a Contact page with a form that gives people a way to send you emails."
Yes, I am aware of the contradiction there, thank you. I have changed my mind on doing that many times. Sometimes there's a contact form, sometimes there's no contact page at all. Depends on my state of mind...
...Hang on, who am I talking to? Who are you?
"You. But in speech marks so people can follow it easier."
Oh.
"I think you thought it was a good way of showing your internal conflicts about stuff."
Is it working?
"We could ask the readers?"
Hell no.
"So the only way to shut me up is to come to a point or resolution of some sort in this post."
Yes, that might do it. Umm... I blog for fun. When I blog, that's what I think then. Or it might not be what I'm thinking then, but just a way of saying something that might strike me as being funny. No one should take it too seriously, or come at me with alternate opinions or takes on things I've written about, because half the time I won't remember writing it or what I was thinking at the time.
Likes, or toasts, are lovely, and thank you if you're moved to clicking the button—it tells me I'm not just talking to myself. A lot of the time I am talking to myself now. But I'm not really writing it for having further conversation about any of it.
I have found a happier voice than I have been using before. It's not a very deep voice (as in emotionally deep, not the Barry White tingling your undies deep), but I think it's at a level I'm comfortable with now. And I am absolutely fine if nothing gets near the Trending feed sort of numbers ever again, because I'm not writing anything that is as meaningful to loads of people now, not trying to, and I know it.
Keeping it light and making it fairly silly sometimes is where I'm at.
Although the chances of me having another paranoid anxiety downer and deciding to delete absolutely everything I've ever written again are not zero.
Will that do?
Hello?
I think he's happy.
NB: Since reading that seeing an abundance of em dashes in a post has been touted as a sign that AI has been used in the writing of it, I have been using em dashes more in a typically contrary manner. It makes me smile that my posts are so obviously not AI (I hope anyway) but uses em dashes liberally all over the place, and is effectively my reclaiming em dashes for humanity.
Written by a real person who completely ignores red wavy underlining and uses perfectly legitimate brand new words that just haven't made it to a dictionary yet.
Post Link: https://skryblans.com/the-horror-of-too-many-readers
↓ There is a star to click down here, if you have been fully trained by modern social media to click stars mindlessly whenever you see them.
I have been similarly fully trained to receive them gratefully.