frustrations with the impossibility of community on the big web
I've blogged for a long time, but I've never blogged with the sense that I am an active part of a living, breathing community like I have on Bear Blog. On Tumblr, Substack, or any of the other platforms I've tried, the number of users and follower counts and Big Brain Essays (but they're really just ads) all felt too bloated for my presence to make a difference. Forget making a difference, will anyone even see me? How can they, even if they want to, with all of this other crap in their face1 fogging me from their view?
On the tiny internet, every post means something. Not only am I blogging when I hit publish, but I'm actively feeding a healthy and beautiful online ecosystem populated with like-minded individuals, all with their own voices and visions. Guestbooks, blogrolls, emails, it's all part of fostering this very small, very important community.
When I first started on Bear Blog, I just wanted a place to write. I didn't really care about amplifying other blogger's voices on my page, or reaching out to other bloggers via email. I didn't care, I soon learned, because I had never learned about it before! It's not something the Big Web cares about because it's essentially an impossibility given the vastness of it all, and it had passed me by. All I needed then was a website where I could log on, write, publish, and log off. For a while, that was all Bear Blog was to me. But as my posts gained more traction and people started reaching out to me or including me in their blogrolls, I realized how good it felt to be a part of the community, and I want to recreate that feeling for others wherever possible.
One email means more to me than a comment on my social media ever will. The reason? Effort. Something we all have in common on Bear Blog is that we had to find this place, and that's a big achievement considering all the ways the Big Web tries to hide little sites from us! We had to put in effort to make our blogs, to post consistently, to make emails and guestbooks and blogrolls and directories and all of the other lovely add-ons you can use to make your blog more you. We all had to exert hours of effort just to be here, so why wouldn't we exert a few more to make sure the experience is as amazing for others as it was for us when we first arrived here?
Whether you've been blogging for a short time or a long time, you know the feeling of being recognized, reached out to, or shouted out on this platform, because that's just the kind of community we are. If you're here, you're a part of a living, breathing thing. Every time you log on, you keep it alive.
Also, I hate Substack.
Like, does Substack really need a Twitter-style homepage? What is that?? Who is that for???↩