Some stuff

The last thing in the world I want to be seen as is false or insincere, but unfortunately being unwilling to do certain things I might consider so really limits my potential. See I want a larger audience, as I’ve said before not much more so than now just a few more people, but so much of the advice or methods that are given for helping with that feel wrong in some way. I’ll take one thing I’ve seen suggested, which is to directly address the reader. Now until now I haven’t ever really done that, maybe in a couple of specific instances but not as a general rule. I don’t open up every post pretending that I actually know any of you people. I’m glad you all keep coming back, and I’m glad that what I have to say resonates with you, but I won’t pretend you’re a personal friend of mine when that just isn’t the case. Doing so apparently is a great help though, people like feeling like there’s some kind of relationship between them and the person who’s blog or video or whatever they’re viewing.

That’s why every major youtube video (I’m talking normie sphere youtube, not a three hour lecture on bronze age cloth production or something) or blog or whatever starts with the now infamous “hey guys” and ends similarly with the person telling their audience how much they mean to them and similar crap. Now perhaps, in the case of certain larger figures who have a community develop around them and other interesting people within it that’s not entirely dishonest, but they were doing that before that point. See there’s this weird “fake it till you make it” scenario here, where you have to pretend that the few visitors who you know nothing about are a real community of people you actually know about and care for personally in order to actually get such a community, at which point it becomes accurate. Now again I’m not really aiming for a “community” myself, but I have always said I would like more people reading what I have to say than I do currently and I would like if people left comments and actually shared their thoughts on my posts.

Getting viewers, just any viewers, doesn’t mean anything. I want to specifically get the kind of people that, like I said, actually feel like what I have to say resonates with them in some way. So in a way saying that I want a larger audience isn’t entirely accurate, rather I want what I currently do to gain a larger audience. Like I said in my entry right after New Year’s Day, there are certain changes that would cause this blog to lose the identity it has developed. Suddenly shifting to a more friendly vibe, and starting off every entry with “hey guys, how are you doing today?” would not only just seem insincere to those of you who have been here for a while but would feel forced and unnatural for me. After all my instinct when starting was to write the way I did then and still do and to consciously change to a new style for the sole purpose of getting new viewers or getting the one off viewers that sometimes drop by to stay feels wrong. Well that’s not entirely true, there are some things I’m willing to change and others I’m not. I guess what I’m trying to find out is what separates the two, why do some changes to help grow the blog not bother me while others do?

Let’s take another example, something else I’ve heard is to always end with a question or even several questions. Now I’m not against the idea entirely, after all I do sometimes ask questions throughout my posts. Usually I’m using them as a device of rhetoric rather than actually seeking answers, but still I’m clearly not against asking questions as a rule. The problem is that again it’d feel forced, not as much as with the whole directly addressing you all thing sure but still enough to bug me. See, if I have to remind myself to end off with a question every time it’s just gonna feel weird. I’m not really saying anything at all here, this post is a complete mess. The thing is I started writing something entirely different a few days ago and had to delete all of it. The idea really fell apart and so now having thrown away days of work I’m just trying to get something out so I can maintain my weekly schedule. I’m not saying that what I’ve been talking about today isn’t something that I think about, or that has been on my mind, I’m just not able to articulate it very well right now. Looks like another dud week unfortunately, a shame because I’ve mostly been really happy with what I’ve put out over the last month or so. I do want to quickly make another point about the idea of ending with a question though.

See it’s a little like what I was saying earlier with regard to addressing you all directly, in that there’s this funny “fake it till you make it” thing going on. See, I say “audience” and “visitors” and similarly vague things, but really there’s just three or four (maybe five, it’s hard to tell because of the one time visitors) of you. I can end with a question, but it’s clear that none of you are interested in commenting or responding or you would have done so by now. Which is fine, I’m the same I actually never comment on youtube videos or other blogs or anywhere other than threads on 4chan really. So if I end with a question, I’m just asking a potential audience which doesn’t exist yet. Maybe it will never exist, but I do feel like if I was able to find a few people who truly care about what I have to say in half a year then hypothetically I should be able to find more given just how many people there are in the world, and that keeps me hopeful.

I don’t really know exactly what it is I want, I’m unwilling to make any meaningful changes but unhappy that I’m not finding more people who want to stick around. I’m not sure if I actually magically had say ten new regular readers within a month whether I’d feel any better. I mean when I actually write these I half pretend I’m writing them just for myself. I know that people are reading them of course, I’m conscious of that fact, but on some level I haven’t fully realised it. Maybe that’s another reason why openly addressing you, whether it be you meaning all of you together or you the specific person reading this right now, feels weird to me. I’m not sure what to say, what do you think?

Anyway, there’s still more good stuff to come (if you agree that some of what I’ve written for this blog so far was good) so I’d stick around even though there will probably also be more duds like this one as well in the months ahead. I don’t really talk about my own life so much anymore, as I did when I first started this blog, but despite what it might seem I’m actually doing really well right now. It’s been a dark week, I fell into a fit of paranoia regarding my job and the people I work with, but my suspicions have proven to be entirely unsubstantial. As the first days of spring finally hit, some much needed sunlight was shed on the situation, allowing me to realise how hasty I had been. I also stopped sharing my pleb tier entry level taste for the most part, but just in case anyone cares I’ve been listening to Alt-J a lot lately and also I’ve been getting into Death In June over the last few weeks. I also took this photo, the one used as the header image, earlier this afternoon. It’s not often you can see the moon so clearly in the middle of the day, and I thought it was pretty.