Saluton, my fellow cybernauts. As you can see from the title, I don't know who you are or even how many you are. How does that impact that blog?
Writing places
On the public internet, I mostly write stuff in:
- This blog
- Mastodon
- Itch.io devlogs, sometimes
I have basic analytics for Mastodon. I know how many liked and shared a post, what they replied, and who followed me after I wrote it.
Only itch.io gives me a number of views, among other things like the source website. It's nice sometimes, I discovered a blog post that mentioned one of my games.
But on this blog? Absolutely no feedback. Except, in decreasing order of probability: someone answers on Mastodon, or emails me, or tells me in real life, or is a blogger in my feed and writes about my blog.
Also, I don't use social media regularly with "that person saw your post" notifications. They come in two flavors: emergency-only or creepy.
Okay but why?
Since humans discovered numbers, watching them go up (numbers, not humans?) has been very exciting. But as our growth-focused society destroys the planet, it's harder and harder to justify that. Many are sick of people in charge saying growth is a good thing. The lack of analytics is a way to resist that.
Think about how trolls work: mood goes down, but views go up, and if admins are amoral, they're happy as long as those trolls don't break any law. They're not just on the internet, but on all media with analytics like TV. I don't think they would be as successful without all the view tracking.
Also, I'm too lazy to set up any kind of infrastructure for this website except the minimum.
The impact on this blog
I have no feedback by default. I am writing blind. Well not literally blind, it takes a really good typist to do that.
Compared to other platforms, I treat this blog more like an art project, like instead of making games I was making words.
Awooga! Cowabonga! Gloubiboulga! Isn't that weird that Confucius isn't known as Kong Fuzi, his modern-translated name? I ate pasta today.
Anyway, no analytics.
Isn't it scary?
The result is that people know me, but I don't know them. Before the Internet, that was only true for celebrities, but now it's true if you published even a single word. Now that I think about it, I don't know many bloggers who wrote only one word. That'd be funny.
One way to keep sane with that thought is to consider that you are not alone, and all bloggers you read are (probably) in the same position.
Another is to consider the alternative: as a writer, being worried about numbers not going up. Yet another dent in your sleep schedule, as if that wouldn't be enough. Or as a reader, having your personal data stolen. Hah, like THAT would ever happen!
Join me… if you can
Not everyone is in the position to do without analytics. If you write for a company, and some marketing department (or manager) ruthlessly pesters you night and day about numbers going up, that's the first thing they have in mind. Also, they know you're reading this. RUN!!!
If that company is yourself, or as a totally random example you have to promote a commercial video game you made, that's even worse. You have to wear the marketer cap and yell at your writer cap.
And so, internal or not, all that yelling is another dent in your sleep schedule. With all those dents, insomnia's dentition must be very good, do they use toothpaste?
Does insomnia use toothpaste?
Wait, no, don't put that in a title!
Whether you are zero or 1000 people, I'd be happy to have a reasonable amount of feedback from you. This is the fourth post of this month, a personal record for now. Maybe you have something to say about my posting frequency?
On that note (mi bemol), see ya in the next one!