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Why I still blog after 15 years

jonashietala.se

41–50 of 230 posts

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#41

I've kept a blog for almost 20 years now. I think author missed #8: I've personally benefited so much from the writings shared by others that it feels amiss to not share back things I've learned and little tips and tricks. One of my most viewed blog posts is a really short and simple one on simulating drag-and-drop of files with Playwright automation. I found no such information when I ran into this problem so the on…

I never can tell what will resonate, either. My top posts getting traffic right now: - How to fix a Casper Glow Light charger - What I think about various email apps’ privacy policies - How to put FreeDOS on a USB stick on a Mac Why those got popular is beyond me. I’m just glad someone else but me found them useful.

Heh, similar sentiment... I just post things because I like having my own 'open notebook' that I can search easily, and the most popular post, by far, is about how to sync a shared Google Calendar with mac/iOS.

I only had to do it once, but the process was so simple yet undocumented, I thought I'd post it on my blog.

And now, for an entire decade, that post is basically Google's own documentation, since it's the top result for this common problem.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#42

"I keep this blog for me to write, not necessarily for others to read." This is the key to do anything over a long period of time but certainly applies to blogging. Nothing is better than intrinsic motivation and something you do for yourself. I have a blog that I try to keep up with. I fail to be consistent and one reason always has been me asking "Who should I write it for" instead of "What do I want to write about…

It’s a spirit from the old Internet that we’ve all but lost. Replaced with the toxic “write for engagement” spirit that brought us SEO, blogspam, influencers, “YouTube Face” thumbnails, ragebait, and now AI slop. Same for writing and releasing open source software. Write software that you want to write and don’t worry about how many users you have or how many pull requests you get or how many GitHub stars you have. T…

I think some of the blame has to do with how metrics and analytics started taking over every aspect of online culture (as is hinted at).

I noticed I tried to optimize my blog more when I was using Google Analytics; that whole setup really pushes you to look at certain metrics like time on site, bounce rate, etc.

The best decision I've made for blogging sanity a few years back was to switch to a simple self-hosted analytics solution that just focuses on total traffic and referrers, which is mostly helpful to see if a post hit some aggregator like HN or Reddit... but even that's fundamentally a vanity metric.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#43
post #39

> "I keep this blog for me to write, not necessarily for others to read." This is now to me the "old school" internet creator attitude (that I still possess). I don't blog as much any more but do create content elsewhere - a lot of it is for my own enjoyment and creative outlet, to blow off steam, whatever - the fact that other people may want to watch it is secondary. I do try to do things people want, but only if I…

It's the flip side of every other employment possibility having such poor prospects. Do you spend 4 years getting a degree no one will hire for so you can bag groceries to pay off debt, or do you bag groceries to live while trying to break through as a creator? For most people, there aren't many options available. All the best opportunities are in cities no one can afford to live in anymore.

Still, it's surprising that they can't even conceive of doing anything without profit motive as an incentive. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of inter-generational dialogue. Perhaps Millennials and Gen-X are uniquely idealistic (or naïve) generations.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#44

> "I keep this blog for me to write, not necessarily for others to read." This is now to me the "old school" internet creator attitude (that I still possess). I don't blog as much any more but do create content elsewhere - a lot of it is for my own enjoyment and creative outlet, to blow off steam, whatever - the fact that other people may want to watch it is secondary. I do try to do things people want, but only if I…

Agreed. I think part of this shift came with the transition to use real names online everywhere. Now what you put out there really matters because you might be judged for it years later. So if you're limited in your creativity, why bother creating something you don't enjoy if it doesn't have the potential to make you money?

Personally I'm keeping my real name Gmail but I've created a no-name account on Proton and am starting to use that for certain platforms. I want to try and get back to something like the days of creating random logos in Gimp and posting them to my Geocities page that no one viewed other than a friend or two and I didn't care.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#45
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the flip side of every other employment possibility having such poor prospects. Do you spend 4 years getting a degree no one will hire for so you can bag groceries to pay off debt, or do you bag groceries to live while trying to break through as a creator? For most people, there aren't many options available. All the best opportunities are in cities no one can afford to live in anymore.

Still, it's surprising that they can't even conceive of doing anything without profit motive as an incentive. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of inter-generational dialogue. Perhaps Millennials and Gen-X are uniquely idealistic (or naïve) generations.

Let's not confuse what they do for money with what they do for fun. For example: A lot of happy programmers can't conceive of doing it for fun: they log in, do a good job, log out, go tend to their sheep and work on their woodshed.

You might not have the full picture of someone's life from a context-constrained conversation. There are things I'm good at that I tend to only want to do with a profit motive. I have plenty of unmonetized hobbies though.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#47
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the flip side of every other employment possibility having such poor prospects. Do you spend 4 years getting a degree no one will hire for so you can bag groceries to pay off debt, or do you bag groceries to live while trying to break through as a creator? For most people, there aren't many options available. All the best opportunities are in cities no one can afford to live in anymore.

Still, it's surprising that they can't even conceive of doing anything without profit motive as an incentive. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of inter-generational dialogue. Perhaps Millennials and Gen-X are uniquely idealistic (or naïve) generations.

The "Hawk Tuah" girl is a perfect example to me. She had a funny moment, and I think 15-20 years ago it probably would have just been a funny meme for a few years and a "oh you're that girl from the meme" at parties for her entire 20's. Like that's exactly how that would have played out. Now she quit her job, has sponsorships, got a major podcast deal - over a single viral moment. It's nutty to me, personally, but people seem to see this as perfectly normal.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#48

> "I keep this blog for me to write, not necessarily for others to read." This is now to me the "old school" internet creator attitude (that I still possess). I don't blog as much any more but do create content elsewhere - a lot of it is for my own enjoyment and creative outlet, to blow off steam, whatever - the fact that other people may want to watch it is secondary. I do try to do things people want, but only if I…

> content creation

I seriously hate the term "content" used for "creative output". It is a terrible, derogatory word, that makes me sad. Content is only there to have something to sell, to fill the blank space around ads, the actual content of the content doesn't matter. That people refer to themselves as "content creators" is a sign that they see the value of their creative output only to make money.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#49
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's surprising that they can't even conceive of doing anything without profit motive as an incentive. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of inter-generational dialogue. Perhaps Millennials and Gen-X are uniquely idealistic (or naïve) generations.

Let's not confuse what they do for money with what they do for fun. For example: A lot of happy programmers can't conceive of doing it for fun: they log in, do a good job, log out, go tend to their sheep and work on their woodshed. You might not have the full picture of someone's life from a context-constrained conversation. There are things I'm good at that I tend to only want to do with a profit motive. I have plen…

> A lot of happy programmers can't conceive of doing it for fun

I don't think that's true. I think even people who fit that description are aware of others who find it fun. I guess what I was saying is, it doesn't even occur to them that someone would do something absent any profit motive.

Re: Why I still blog after 15 years

#50
This resonates with me. I had a recent stint of not writing due to very intense discouragement and feeling like a bit of a fraud. Like Jonas, I was writing for myself and kind of lived in a bubble where my posts had no comment system and I saw around 5 visitors per day on average with the odd boom to hundreds to thousands for a day or two. This was rare. I didn't worry much about what I wrote so much as how much I enjoyed writing it.

Eventually I was struggling in the job market and someone suggested that my writing was hurting my prospects. They found the odd typo and grammar mistake, thought the content wasn't particularly good, that it was hard to follow/disjointed, etc.

I immediately took it all down and felt like a bit of a fool to have thought anyone would actually find it useful. Maybe I should have written it but kept it offline like a personal journal, I thought.

After a year or so it occurred to me how incredibly wrong all of that was. I never should have taken anything offline. I've hired people before, many times, and not once did I stumble across a candidate's personal blog and think "ugh, typos. grammar mistakes. no thanks". These things are a signal of a person's character, curiosity, ability, and all kinds of other factors that matter a lot. Almost always these things helped people I was hiring more than it hurt. There's the odd case where I could tell the site wasn't followed through on and that's not great, but it's very relatable too.

I took a while but started writing again, started sharing it in an attempt to shake the self-doubt out of myself, and it has been an incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating experience. Writing reminds me of what I love about programming, because I primarily write about the things I find fascinating or engaging. It gives me a greater sense of knowledge and ability as I've covered a topic so thoroughly. It's a mental exercise not only in writing itself, but understanding.

Jonas says this and I couldn't agree more: something about it is just fun. I can't put my finger on it. When I'm writing, I'm in a focused and engaged state almost instantly. It's where I want to be.

If you doubt yourself and feel like writing isn't for you—even though you enjoy it—I hope you can take something from my experience and realize that it's still worth it. No one cares if you don't write like an acclaimed author. No one cares if there's the odd typo or bad grammar. The point is to enjoy it, and share that with people who are curious. The more you do it, the better you'll get. It can become a real source of joy in your life.

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