Becoming Popular on the Internet without Wanting to
In one of the previous IndieWeb Homebrew websites, one of the people present brought forward the problem of breaching the containment on their blog post. So when the blog post gets posted on the not-the-usual crowd places and then people that are not the usual audience get to read it, check the blog and even start following it.
Their worry was, that they were following them for the type of content they recently posted. And that people will be disappointed, if they go back to their regular posting. So they were thinking about what to post going forward. And how to relate to their blog in the future.
And the other point was their feeling about these people reading their writing.
I think this is an interesting situation, and there are a lot of things to take into account. So I will try to write them down in case, I will ever have to deal with it. (Though I do hope not :) )
The Context Collapse
The first thing to think about is the context collapse. All our communication is generally done in the specific context. Depending on who and where we are talking, we use different language, register and tone. We do not talk the same to our parents or the drunk that wants to join your group, or your best friend or your boss, or the person serving you at the store.
Well, you could. Technically the only thing stopping you is the social roles and the expectations that come with it. It is the fact, that a lot of people do not act or speak the same in the different contexts.
I do experience this in the physical life. For example, about a year ago, I had a standup (the only one so far). Then I had this problem. There were the comics people, that are more a group of somebody else I know. There was my family. There were people I met at Toastmasters. There were tech people.
And I remember this weird feeling, of having different parts of my life mixing. I did not have to act and I did not know how to mediate that. Nothing happened. It was fine. There were not problems. But I can understand where the fear is coming from.
Since then I had tried to introduce my own offline context collapses in my life. And so far nothing bad happened. But I had not tried anything major. I am absolutely not introducing the people from the Russians should take us over group with the queer people. I don't think they will go along, and I like the later fun and cosy atmosphere.
It is actually something I am thinking about right now. I mentioned to my family, that I was checking how long would the train to Brighton take for the March IndieWebCamp (it would take me about 23 hours, which is... a bit long). My mother immediately identified, that she wants to go on some sort of coaching program in Edinburgh and I can join here there and become a coach (don't ask me of what, since I did not really get a good explanation). The she would join me on the IndieWeb camp.
There are a lot of things to worry about there, but the one that worries me the most is how she would try to get me married there. She already jumps to every single mention of me meeting any men and wants to know if they are potential candidates for me to marry. Actually seeing me interacting... I would never hear the end of it. Which I could accept. I am not sure that poor soul would ever hear the end of if either.
(She really, really, really, really wants me to marry, and I really, really could not care less about the marriage.)
So what to do in this situation? I am on the fence already because of the long travel time, so there was not a lot of chance of me going. Not sure what I would decide, if it would be closer and I had plans to go...
Now this is all the thinking, that we developed in the offline spaces. But they in a way to work that way online and in the way they do not.
Feedback loop
Both tiramisu and Tracy wrote about, how online-first and offline-first relationships are generally divided also in the way of interaction. The people we know offline rarely read our blogs. And even when they do, the online work does not hugely colour the offline interaction. Some will mention they read it occasionally, and that it is.
And that is also the biggest difference in the online spaces. We do have context, but we do not have as tight of the feedback loop as in the offline spaces.
In the offline world, we have the social intuition, that can see the feedback on our actions. We see their body language. We hear their tone. We see the distance. We see if something distracted them. We see how other people are acting in the same context and how other people react to them.
Sure, anxiety or autism or cultural differences or something else can make reading this signs a bit problematic. But there are there. And people are taking them into account.
The online environment does not have that. I could enjoy watching the movie you made, something you wrote could make me cry, or the comics can make me laugh.
But unless I share this with the person, they have no idea about that. The nature of the internet makes any feedback loop explicit.
There are two ways of looking at things, that I found useful.
The first is the concept from the Adler's individual psychology. If you want a readable introduction, the the book 嫌われる勇気 / The Courage to be disliked. And one of the concepts there is the separation of tasks.
The separation of tasks talks about who is responsible for the tasks. The person that will rip the rewards is the one that is responsible for the task. Other people trying to force them to do it or their reaction of their doing and not doing is not their responsibility.
The upper book have the example of a child doing homework. If the child does the homework, then they will have better grades and will have more options in the future. At least I think it goes that way. I was a notoriously bad homework doer, to the point that my parents have been called to school about it multiple times. My task was to make a decision of whenever I will do the homework. It was not my task to worry, care or manage the people's expectation or feelings related to whenever I do the homework or not.
I think the Tracy's post about getting reminded by people about her not-helpful outlook is a good example of Adler's psychology at work. People can help her with her goals, but it is still her decision if she will continue moving in that direction.
Just like I can tell my coworkers to not worry and to instead play video games. But whenever they take my advice and my reaction to them either taking or not is not their problem.
(Here is another explanation of the separation of tasks, because I am not 100% sure, I was clear enough.)
It is the same in the online life. People might have various wishes for you or me or anybody. But it is up to each of us to decide whenever we want that or not. Their reaction is ultimately their own problem.
I guess told in the fanfic words: Don't Like, Don't Read. It is the reader responsibility to curate their own environment.
The Danger of the Internet
Sure, in some cases the things can get... dangerous. I mean, the gamergate is the example that comes to mind right now. But there are a lot of other smaller examples around as well. One can be either outed or mistakenly named as the prostitute by politicians, or harassed for sharing something someone considers problematic.
I think this is a good reason, why one would post on the internet under the pseudonym. Or why not to post one address on the website, even if living in the country, where this is required by law (really Germany?).
I think it is possible to ignore the online threats. Not so much, if they come in the offline part of the world. That is why I post the email to my website, but my phone number would be a highly guarded secret, if not for my work. If somebody calls me, that I did not give the number to, they will get questioned where they go it. And the person that gave it will get some stern talking to. :)
I actually do not have a solution for that. No matter how bland I am one the internet, if they want to find something against me, they will find something against me. I can just make sure, it has less possibility to spill to the offline life.
Interestingness
This blandness is something I occasionally talk about. Right now I am thinking of somebody I know from offline life. In the real life, they are the funny and helpful person. But their blog is... boring?
They are just not comfortable raising the attention of the people. So they only post about what they consider safe topics. Something nobody could take much offence about it.
But since blandness will not protect me, then what I want to do is take take advantage of the lower feedback loop and train what I am willing to share. I think blogging (both reading and even more writting) is one of the reasons, that I eventually felt comfortable enough to share my fanfiction hobby both at work and in the tech conference as a speech. That I can make jokes, roll eyes and complain, when people talking about how generative AI is great. That I can mention having a therapist to the people around me. That I can go cuddle with people, that I met just a couple of times before. :) That I could mention my aromanticism with people outside of the queer spaces.
There are still some parts of me, that I don't want to share on my blog or in my everyday life. But they are getting rarer and rarer in time. In about another 10 year, I might be alright with sharing all of me. And not hold back because of some irrational feeling. :)
And it is always interesting to see that some of these things resonate with the people offline.
And the people that do not want to hang up with the people like me? Well, they can filter themselves out. I don't then have to worry about it.
I sometimes wish they would filter themselves even more. But maybe that just means, that I need to be even weirder and more myself?
That is the second perspective, that help me post. It is training for me.
Do you want to know if you are popular?
And I curate my online experience. I am not on any service, where the UI allows the spread beyond the original context. Let this be social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Mastodon (Yes, I am putting Fediverse in this group, because in this one aspect, it is like the rest of them.) or the popular aggregators like the Hacker News. So if somebody would share something mine on these services, I would not know about it.
Unless somebody intentionally reaches out to me to tell me, I will not know. I have read enough anecdotes about fanfiction, to know that people a lot of times discuss it without reaching out to the author. I am assuming something similar is going on in our blog posts.
And if somebody is sending me an email, there is always a delete button. I don't need to read or reply, if I don't want to.
The Goal of Being Online
On the end, I guess the most important question to ask is, why are we online? Not collectively, but each person separately.
I know, that I do not care about popularity. I would have continued writing something, even if nobody is going to read it. I did it since at least primary school, though... I don't have anything from that time. Even though some of my (overcorrected) poems were published at the school newspaper, I don't have copies. Of either the published versions or my own.
I am quite the minimalist, and I throw away a lot of things. If I publish my writings on the web, then I don't have the feeling like I need to organise and delete them, like online files or throw them away, like the things I would wrote on physical paper. So publishing is basically the only way that I can read back my words.
I don't need to sell anything online. I don't need popularity. I like the interactions that I get because of my site, but if I did not get it, I would still just churn the words out.
Though, they would likely be different words, then what I am writing right now. Since I would get different inspirations. :)
If a person wants to be popular, or read, or something else... then these perspectives get a bit different. Maybe something to rethink, if I will ever be in position to have to sell things through the internet.