This was an interesting read! I agree that making a personal website is not the fix to whatâs wrong with social media. It would be unrealistic to expect everyone to learn the skills required to do so. Hell I didnât even make my website for that reason. I just wanted to show off my css designs since I bothered learning it. It just so happened I was also tired of social media. And of course thereâs many people who have both a website and social accounts.
Anyways I think making a personal site isnât for everyone and thatâs okay! Although I do feel a little sad that he doesnât feel like he has anything worth sharing on a personal website. You donât have to be an expert or master in anything to have valuable or entertaining pages. Oddly enough though he published this article on his website where he has links to his own projects and tutorials which I think is perfect for a website! Maybe his isnât as personal, being a more professional one, but he doesnât seem to have realized that heâs basically doing what he said he doesnât really get. If this was his attempt it was pretty good!
Thatâs the part I was most bothered about. Because if thatâs the mindset you might as well retreat in your home and donât talk to anybody. Becuase if you think you donât have anything worth sharing online then you probably donât have anything worth sharing in real life either.
And I call bullshit on that. Beucase we all have lives, we all have things weâre passionate about. We all have experiences worth sharing. So saying âI donât have anything worth sharingâ is a cop-out .
I wouldnât call it a âcop-outâ myself, mostly because I can relate to the feeling. Blogging and website making, like any creative endeavor, is a muscle that must be exercised, and once you do, the ideas will usually come. I felt that way at first about my blog, but I was pretty sure once I got into the habit, I would find all sorts of ways to use it, and I have! I hope this guy gets out of his self-imposed box at some point, if thatâs what he wants.
I really enjoyed the links to the Everything/nothing sites. Iâve never really had a way to classify what I organize my personal site around, but I think that fits it really well. I wasnât familiar with the term until now, but Iâm thinking about adopting it.
Itâs not a cop-out. Itâs an autistic masking tactic, or least one I recognize as such.
Thatâs not to say that the author of this piece is autistic (Iâm neither qualified or getting paid to diagnose them) but I recognize it. There is a lot Iâve kept to myself over the years because I learned at an early age that nobody gives a damn about my interests, especially my âspecial interestsâ.
Unlearning that as an adult has not been easy. Iâm still not quite there yet. Itâs one of the reasons I was never comfortable with online self-promotion as a novelist.
Youâve said several times that I seem fearless in my self-expression, but I am nothing of the sort. I am afraid to be myself around others, even online, but I defy my fear. I feel it, but refuse to let it constantly rule me. Even then thereâs still a lot that I keep to myself.
This is fair but itâs different from what heâs saying:
One supposed upside to making a personal website is that itâs personal - the whole website can be an expression of who you are, what you love and what you stand for. But what if who you are is ânobody special?â
The answer to that is âso what?â The point of personal websites is that theyâre personal and as I said, we all have something worth sharing. And itâs especially true in this case because this person is both on mastodon, sharing stuff about archery and walking in nature and other stuff and heâs also on youtube sharing videos.
So clearly he has things worth sharing but for some reason thereâs this idea that doing it on a personal site has to be different?
Yes but Iâm sure you didnât then go to Twitter and posted there. You kept it for yourself and that was it. That I can understand and respect.
Thatâs an interesting take on it, I can somewhat relate. Though for me itâs more in the sense that if anyone wants to seek out the information I can offer, there are much more complete and well-presented sources than my own website, rather than feeling like no one cares about my interests. Online, much like real life, there is always going to be someone more knowledgeable or more skilled than me out there, so it can feel pointless to do something despite not being The Best at it. Itâs a feeling I have to fight constantly, but sometimes I am able to push through and publish stuff anyway.
I feel likewise. There are better sf/fantasy writers than me. I will probably never win the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo, the Nebula, or any other prize in the genre I write. Iâm never going to make a shitload of money doing this or see my work adapted for film. Nobodyâs going to record a concept album or a song based on my writing.
However, nobody else was doing it my way. Nobody was writing the sort of heavy metal/metal hurlant science fantasy I wanted to read, and literature ainât Burger King: if you want to âhave it your wayâ youâve got to write it yourself.
It was worth it even though the best I managed with my first published novel was to complicate my tax returns for a few years and make a little extra money on top of my day job. My second novel bombed. Neither has more than an average of 3.5 stars on Goodreads, but whatever; at least theyâre not only getting 1 star ratings. Thatâs just the way it goes, and publishing a novel that doesnât sell is like coming in last at an Olympic event. The mere fact that you got to compete is more than most ever manage.
Writing sf and being on the Web is also how I met my wife and the other women I had dated before her. So, fuck the haters. If they think they can do better, letâs see them prove it.
Maybe itâs not going to help, but Iâm gonna say that sometimes, when youâre getting into something, itâs helpful to read content thatâs not coming from The Best at that specific thing.
Because it might be overwhelming or they might write for an audience that they assume itâs at their level. So itâs important to have content thatâs coming from people at all levels as long as theyâre honest and donât just pretend to be better than they actually are.
At least thatâs how I see it. But I get the feeling. Itâs one of the reasons why I wrote I think one âtechnicalâ post in 7+ years on my blog. I donât think iâm particularlly good at what I do but itâs something I probably need to overcome and itâs all related to self trust issues and all that but itâs a separate story.
The stuff about not being superlative or ânobody specialâ seems like self-defeating nonsense to me. He took the time to sit down and write what he was thinking about and then shared it with the world via his personal site. Itâs a well written piece that demonstrates the magic of the âweb revivalâ - that all seems kinda special to me!
Expecting more than that from having a personal site isnât realistic imo. Weâre all unique and special - and/or boring - and/or living mundane lives -yadda yadda yadda. Sharing honest thoughts with strangers may seem difficult and special but itâs just what people do. Besides, the world needs all the honesty each of us can put into it.
My 2-bit advice to the author: Have a personal site for yourself - not for others. More important, believe in yourself and can the self-pityâŚ
YES! Totally agree. And thatâs the entire point of having personal website. To share your thoughts about the things you find interesting. You donât have to be special to do that.