Viral ambition essays seem to have gone out of fashion. Kinda cringe to even aim at that now. Substack has a professionalized energy, Wordpress feels quiet and suburban, and the rest is emo-jewel craft pieces. Even nakedly mercenary clickbait seems in decline.
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I think a contemplative mood has descended on the reader-writer contract now. Like everybody’s switched from uppers to downers.
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Haven’t seen a piece even aiming at, let alone hitting, the kind of manic-aha note the entire blogosphere was aiming at 2000-20. Covid killed that mood. I snuck in a last post of that sort just a month before Covid, with internet of beefs 🤔
Can’t imagine writing like that now.
Blogs remain the bellwether of where writing is headed. I enjoy my substacking but money does alter how things evolve there. Goodhart’s law etc. And the emo static site game still hasn’t grown up. And possibly never will.
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It’s no longer domestic cozy or cozyweb though. The mood has shifted once again to sort of “public life but on the dl” mode. Nobody wants to give soapbox speeches in the plaza anymore. But they don’t want to hide at home or in warrens of dms and slack/discord either 🤔
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Not quite sure what this is but feels like medieval travelers bumming around from small town to small town, visiting friends, writing letters, etc. I’m mostly treating ribbonfarm like an unlisted public notebook for the now. It’s open to the public nominally, but not really.
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Not really my kind of social writing environment so I’m kinda going off on yakshaves instead.
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Replying to
the last thing i wrote before covid is still doing numbers lol
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