WARNING!!: FLASHING COLOURS AND MOVEMENT AHEAD
The long and short of it is that making a website is in a sort of goldilocks zone.
I think there is just enough friction to learning how to make a website and publishing updates to it that makes it feel like an intentional act of creation but not too much friction it is dibilitating
The skill floor is low enough that anyone with an interest in starting can start within a couple days (or a couple weeks if you push it) while also being so high that how far you take your site is only limited by your ambition. For example you can host a static site for free or you can get into the weeds and learn fullstack development to make a fully featured web app
It's also a space that is genuinely yours. Anything on your website is a certain way because it was your decision to do so. If your desire to change your site ever outgrows your capacity to change it there are a host of resources and communities dedicated to learning how to improve their sites.
If the internet is "A Series of Tubes", where do the tubes go? As I am sure you are aware most social interaction on the internet is directed through about 5 websites. Where corporations used to create bespoke websites which would implicitly tell you about themselves by the design, they now all make ironic social media accounts.
This is because corporations want to maximize reach. If 1:100 people buy your product from mere exposure, the more exposure you have the more people buy your product.
This reach comes at the cost of connection.
When was the last time you had a genuine interaction on the big 5 social media platforms? When was the last time that giving someone your social media account felt like "this is a part of me I want you to have" instead of "I need this to communicate with you beacuse all my friends are addicted to this app".
This is the primary value of a website to me. When I engage with social media by putting a genuine piece of my soul into something I make and it is not rewarded with artifical number-go-up interactions, I feel hollow. My work was not good enough.
My website is my space. Not only to write these blog posts but to experiment and play. When I update my website I get to choose who I explicitly want to show it to. It doesn't get sent out to all my friends, friends of friends, people im not really friends with but have to keep added otherwise there will be some sort of weird drama, people I don't like but stalk my account, etc.
This place is for me first. Anyone I want to show it to is a choice.
The big 5 social medias have reduced the friction to broadcasting yourself to the world as much as possible. The result is a legion of impulsive emotional posts and low effort slop.
For a case study lets take a look at an incident from a while ago: James Charles crashing out about those blind accessibility tile things.
While I think this is one of the least noteable controversies this figure has been involved in I think there is value in analyzing it.
To summarize, internet figure James Charles was rolling their shopping cart and came into contact with tactile surface indicators. The creator then proceeded to take out their phone and record a video frustrated about these annoying bumps that (to them) serve no purpose. Finally the creator gets told by off by a barrage of faceless people (more "Social Agents" then actual people on the platforms they are on) and proceeds to make an apology video.
When presented with frustration this creator was able to impulsively upload a lazy emotional video within mere seconds. They are then force-educated by a horde.
Part of the problem is that the frustration did not have time to transform into curiousity. Had James Charles simply googled "what are those plastic bumps on the ground for" he would have both learnt something and been able to educate other people about it.
Like imagine the alternate universe where James did not pull out their phone within 5 minutes of frustration. What would have happened if he made a video where he talked about how he used to get annoyed at these bumps but when he learnt they were to help blind people he knows that his slight annoyance is a small tradeoff for making the world more accessible
The slight friction it takes to make a blog post (at least the way I am doing it) allows for emotional processing and to come to a more defined conclusion about what you experience. That is the idea at least.
The emphasis here is on a slight amount of friction. Personally making something like a video essay feels like too much friction and boring work to get to the part I like which is writing.
I should clarify that low effort slop and low effort content or art or whatever are different. This blog is low effort but what seperates it from slop is it has intent. It has meaning. If not to the reader, to the writer.
Sometimes in other mediums like youtube the creator will look at the audience and ask a rhetorical question like "Do you want to hear the tale of X?" and then go "I don't care! This is my video and I can do what I want!!" carefully avoiding swearing throughout the rest of the video or breaking any TOS or making the video unpleasant for the viewer.
The amount of control static sites give you over visuals and content supersedes any given by a traditional social media site. You don't only have control over content but the way it is presented and how viewers can interact!
So basically when I say "Fuck you! I can do what I want!" what I mean is:
This is MY domain.
IF I WANT TO MAKE MY TEXT UNREADABLE I WILL!!!
Make a website! Take control of your internet presence! Become
ABOVE THE REST