I think modern social media’s focus on “engagement” and speed has taken people’s rich inner lives and churned them into a fine, mushy paste that’s easy to swallow but fundamentally devoid of personality. Some of you may think this is a harsh stance to take. Some of you would be wrong.

I have friends still chained to the demon-site formerly known as Twitter¹ and I keep hearing them complain about how the internet is so mean and angry, how everyone just posts bait to piss people off and don’t meaningfully engage with eachother. Unfortunately, this is the way much of the modern internet is, and not due to any malicious intent: Websites that are free need to serve you ads, and the more ads the better. Therefore, these sites want to maximize the time you spend on them, so you can see more ads. The way to maximize the time you’re on the site is to feed you content that keeps you on the site, or makes your friends spend time too. So far so good, right?

However, the issue is that “the content that keeps you and your friends on the site” is not synonymous with “content you enjoy”, hell it’s often the opposite - the videos that have most impacted me on Youtube I’ve only seen to completion once or twice. What gets people clicking, sharing, and participating the most is either content that requires low brain power so it’s a low-cost-of-entry, or… controversy! Because you need to have an opinion on it! You can’t ignore something this horrible, don’t you have a heart! Babe, I can’t come to bed, someone is wrong on the internet! Purely led by the incentive to show you ads, social media feeds you Engagement Slop and keeps you hooked on its ragebait IV line until it’s 2 AM and you’ve ruined your sleep schedule once more.

I know it’s very difficult to do a wide societal change, especially when the movement you want to do is one that makes people do more effort on a task they don’t really deem all that important, but the lure of not having to see SuperMarioisWoke1998 posting about how The West Has Fallen is a very appealing one. And so - I’m getting my friends to use RSS feeds and open blogs. RSS Feeds are enshittification immune, and you can post whatever it is your little heart desires to a personal blog without having to worry about “getting ratio’d” or “engagement” numbers or whatever the fuck. This is my blog, and anyone who willingly walks in here will listen to my insane ramblings.

Hell, I am so dedicated to this cause I setup a blog for one of my friends along with automatic github actions to make the process easier. I am forcing everyone I know to start writing, because I love my friends, and I love listening to them, and I want to listen to them MORE. I have an RSS feed of dozens of cool blogs I’ve stumbled across and I’m collecting more like a goblin. If you have more blogs you’d like to add to my hoard, email me, I am not kidding.

If you’re reading this post and you don’t have a blog yet? You should. Open one now. I don’t care where, I don’t care why, just post. “But who will read it?” Who gives a shit? The point is the sheer JOY OF CREATION. Post your rambles into the VOID and FUCK reader numbers.

SCREAM INTO THE VOID UNTIL IT FILES A RESTRAINING ORDER.