> "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.
Why I still blog after 15 years
121–130 of 230 posts
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess my fundamental question is why arent these jobs accessible? They dont reqire any degree at all, so it seems like they should be open to both the 4 year art graduate and a high school graduate. I live in a high cost of living area, but these are typical prices here. Call 10 autoshops and thats the typical rate. Even people on yelp operating out of their house arent much cheaper. Heck, residential plumbers char…
I'm not sure how you imagine the process of getting into one of these no-degree businesses goes. You don't just "start doing it." First, you need tools and transportation. Then you need to know what the hell you're doing. Then, probably, some certifications. And now you have to find people to pay you in a highly competitive market full of scammers who make it even harder to sell services. The usual path is to work fo…
so now we are starting to get somewhere. It seems you think the bottlenecks are similar to the ones I flagged such as knowledge, discovery and certification.
If you know a way to find the people starting that aren't charging 200/hr, please let me know because I want to hire them.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#123> "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.
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Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely someone with a college degree that wants to be a plumber can simply not disclose their degree?
Oh, they'll know. All that book learnin' changes you. With life and experience and life experience, you can stop coming off as a stuck-up out of touch asshole to people doing this kind of work. My entire generation got endless refrains of the message that these are the kinds of jobs you fail into if you don't get a degree. That doesn't break easily. It seems like the next crowd gets similar messages.
If I understand you, maybe that is another psycological bottleneck on the side of workers. Hopefully time will change the perception and people will realize that a plumber making 200/hr isn't a failure, and has advantages over being unemployed with a 4 year art degree and 200k debt.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, they'll know. All that book learnin' changes you. With life and experience and life experience, you can stop coming off as a stuck-up out of touch asshole to people doing this kind of work. My entire generation got endless refrains of the message that these are the kinds of jobs you fail into if you don't get a degree. That doesn't break easily. It seems like the next crowd gets similar messages.
If I understand you, maybe that is another psycological bottleneck on the side of workers. Hopefully time will change the perception and people will realize that a plumber making 200/hr isn't a failure, and has advantages over being unemployed with a 4 year art degree and 200k debt.
You've severely misunderstood. No, the problem here is the person with the jobs to offer who is overly picky about beginner attitude, won't hire anyone, then goes on Facebook and yells "no one wants to work anymore!"
The person with the degree understands they messed up after years of job hunting and would be happy for the normal working gig, but it's not on offer to them.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#126> "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…
Genuine question: If you write only for yourself, what motivates you to actually finish, and more importantly, polish a post? I write for myself all the time, in private: I have a journal, a paper notebook, thousands of notes in Obsidian. Yet doing a blog post feels like a massive undertaking every single time, especially the later writing and editing: explaining stuff that is obvious to me and no one else, replacing…
I have 500+ posts over ~9 years and the polish is what lets me absorb what I've written into memory.
If I look at the titles of all of my posts I can pretty much recall the details of the post to a reasonable degree, certainly enough to get a complete gist of it and understand the head space I was in at the time.
If I stick to internal chicken scratch notes then I have a harder time remembering things later. I guess you could say it's the process of writing a somewhat coherent post that has a beginning, middle and end that's really helpful for retention.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I understand you, maybe that is another psycological bottleneck on the side of workers. Hopefully time will change the perception and people will realize that a plumber making 200/hr isn't a failure, and has advantages over being unemployed with a 4 year art degree and 200k debt.
You've severely misunderstood. No, the problem here is the person with the jobs to offer who is overly picky about beginner attitude, won't hire anyone, then goes on Facebook and yells "no one wants to work anymore!" The person with the degree understands they messed up after years of job hunting and would be happy for the normal working gig, but it's not on offer to them.
Seems like from what you described, the main challenge is reliance on entrenched businesses are gatekeeping the entry knowledge and training.
I wonder if trade schools would be a good way to bypass this bottle neck.
I suppose you would still have the problem of people selecting the low ROI degree instead of trade schools, but they would still have the option after they understand "they messed up".
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#128> "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.
The challenge is that every fruit must have its seed. (Even seedless varieties are artificially created by labs which then themselves can be viewed as the seeds, but I digress..)
Nothing of value to others is truly created in a vacuum. It must have some system of re-uptake, of value being conferred back to the creator or else it will never repeat.
Ads are one potential way that can be accomplished, but as much as we hate ads we can't just expect them to go away and leave the "content" alone. We have to replace them with some other superior way of remunerating the creators.
I wish flattr would have took off as a service, that sort of low-friction idea seemed quite promising.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#129> "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…
I write when I've had something on my mind for a while and I need to get it out of my head. Also helps me to work through it in more detail.
I've had a few things get picked up here that got some good attention but many people complain that what I write is too long. It's usually too long because I'm trying to complete the thought for my own sake. One of these days, I could honestly see writing a book because those long posts are usually shortened as much as I can.
Re: Why I still blog after 15 years
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Welcome to the hyper capitalist world that has been created over the past 60 years. This is the result of always needed growth in your economic system.
this seems like a complete non-sequitur to me
seems very relevant to me. Isn't it capitalism that reduces our value to $s? And thus our art is only valuable as content?