I'd advise you not be worried about popularity (Unless of course this blog is your job)
I honestly don't care about how many views my page gets, or personal posts online. I used to be very stressed over my popularity on Twitter or other social media, but since I quit them, I've been feeling a lot calmer and happier.
So don't worry about it, just make what you want, and share with friends.
I've recently started a hobby of making mixtapes out of things I enjoy from the internet. Been recording my favourite internet remixes onto cassette tapes for a while. Got a Sony CFD-S70 from a store last year, since I had heard good things about the unit, and have been using it pretty much daily. Every night, I'm always listening to the tapes I made with it on bed while browsing through Gemini, reading things on this forum, or reading magazines! Also use it while I work on my game and other projects.
Also very recently got a Sony SLV-E730 VCR, which has a scart-in, so I started to get blank VHS tapes and been making tapes of my all-time favourite Youtube videos.
Honestly, it feels like a craft, you need to think about what you're going to fit on the tapes, and figuring out when to stop recording and how much blank space to put between songs and videos. Of course, it would be easier to just put them on a CD or DVD, but there's no fun in that for me!
I wasn't around for when gifting each-other mixtapes was a regular thing, but I wish I was!
Anyone else have experience with making audio or video mixtapes? What did you make of it?
I've started to notice that if I see a political Tweet on Twitter regardless of the political alignment of the owner, you'll always see Tweets from opposing sides, most of which are making remarks and insults. Starting to believe that Twitter is doing this on purpose, since the algorithm benefits from anger as it results in more engagement.
Would also explain why Twitter seems to be the hub for arguments and people getting angry over nothing.
Meanwhile, I've bought a bunch of VHS tapes (Particularly Simpsons, as I've been in a mood for that lately) and made a habit of watching them as I'm in bed instead of going on my Ipad. It actually feels really nice, and I get to sleep quicker!
I know those feelings too well, though it wasn't as severe for me, I guess since I eased off them, quit one at a time, instead of going cold turkey.
I've noticed that now I feel like I have so much time to work on my game project, and can do much more in a day! I had made a list at the start of the month on what I wanted to achieve in that month. I got through them all in 10 days. Now I'm just fixing any bugs or oddities here and there, and finishing things off.
I 100% agree with you. I used to think emojis were some stupid trend by heavy social media users, but then I've seen people do some pretty creative things with it, such as using it for URLs, using them on Gemini as a way to give Capsules more decoration, and even an entire conlang being made from them! It's really cool, actually!
Been through web hosts like tissues. Ones I've used in the past include freewebs, ucoz and several others. Right now, like probably many here, I'm currently using Neocities.
For completition's sake, I use dimension.sh for Gopher, Yestercities for Gemini, Finger.farm for Finger, and Tilde.team for Spartan.
And here people are on this new resurgence of the personal web who are just doing what they want, and it doesn't matter that their websites aren't sleek and new looking, it matters that their websites look good to them and that they are putting out there what they want, not squeezing themselves into a gated community that thrives on both over-sharing and isolation.
Yeah, I don't feel like I'm competing with anyone else here like I would be on Twitter, but instead, we just coexist. In a way, we're even working together to create a better web!
I wasn't sure about this Facebook thing, as I've been taught in school not to share your personal information online, because people can use it to abduct you. And now everyone is using it?
Yeah, Social Media makes us do exactly what we were raised not to do! Don't share personal data online? It's okay if it's to Facebook! Life isn't a popularity contest? Twitter and Instagram says it is now! And now the Metaverse is doing the same for talking to people in virtual worlds in Second Life, VRChat, etc. People used to be seen as "sad" or having no life if they used those. Suddenly it's acceptable. Almost as if they were just mad that they weren't profiting from our escapism, but that's another topic for another day.
And to make things worse, if you post something on Facebook then your FAMILY AND FRIENDS WOULD KNOW. Even if you change your profile picture THEY WOULD KNOW. Once time, I changed my profile picture to a Pokemon Sprite of a Wailord/Heracross fusion and my sister got made at me for it. She said it would make me look bad when people look for me for a job interview.
Can't have an embarrassing Facebook profile if you don't have a Facebook profile
And please don't get me started on TikTok. I went there to see what the fuss is about, and it was the worst decision of my life. My mum caught me using TikTok one time and told me not to use anymore because I should be doing things that are more productive than the 'crazy shit' that I watched on TikTok. I stopped using TikTok that day, and I could not thank her enough!
That sounds like the most responsible parent in this day and age. My parents, and I'm sure many others' too, had that attitude before Facebook. Went from ageing badly to ageing well again, at least as far as social media goes!
But it is true that computing and drugs are almost the only fields that call the people who use them as users :omg:k: I think its more poetic coincidence though.
You know, on this topic, there are terminologies on the internet I personally don't care for: "users" and "followers" being two of them. Maybe this does not impact a lot of people's experience with the net, but I have struggled with "follower"/"following" as terms -- never really cared for it, kind of always thought it was...feeding into something sour. I think deviantArt used "watching/watchers", which...maybe is step down from the whole "figurehead" aspect the former terms always brought for me, but I'm not sure what I'd want to substitute the words for anyways. Anyhow, it is a small thing, but I do think it has shaped a bit of modern internet/influencer culture, in some senses!
That's a good point, actually. The term followers seems to imply some sort of hierarchy. I guess one way to mitigate that at least in the context of Twitter, at least without getting weird looks, is to say "I have x people following my account" instead of "I have x followers"?
I can't find where I read this (it was somewhere on Gemini), but I read that the term "users" to describe someone who is a regular at a website was one coined by Silicon Valley as an analogy to compare to those addicted to drugs.
This probably sounds like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, but come to think of it, I don't think I've heard the term "users" in the context of the internet before Facebook came along. Like if you were in a forum, a BBS or an IRC chat, you weren't a user, you were a member, right?
Not much else to say, just figured that was interesting.
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