I have spoken at length about my antipathy towards social media — or what I would prefer to call it, anti-social media. Jack Dorsey and Twitter — with persons like Donald Trump and others — are trying to poison our country with splenetic 280-character bursts of poisonous partisan politics. The loudest, most outrageous attention getting posts are the ones that gain the most traction on that platform. A lot of storm and noise signifying nothing, or close to nothing.
I want nothing to do with Twitter. Or anything like it.
But I have seen others, like Mike Bowen, write on Substack. I posted a response to one of his articles recently and had a number of persons respond directly to me. It was a bit of an emotional shock. I do not often come into direct contact with others in discussing ideas on the Internet. I am a bit of a hermit online. The hurly-burly of online face-to-face disputation, so to speak, is not the norm for me. Social networks like Twitter have come to resemble shooting galleries, and I would prefer to stay out of range of gunfire, if at all possible.
I write so much. But it is a solitary pursuit. I write on my blog. It suffers for want of an editor, but my blog is more of the intellectual diary of one solitary individual than part of some communal effort at opinion shaping — like you would see at Jacobin and The Nation or National Review and The American Spectator, or The Atlantic or Slate, which are communal efforts and run by editors.
The cutting-edge style of journalism seems to be using Substack. Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibibi, Matt Yglesias, and Mike Bowen are taking their columns to their own entrepreneurial Substack accounts. It is a more individual enterprise — “a place for independent writing,” as Substack describes it. Much of the most interesting, unorthodox writing is currently taking place on Substack.
But I stick with my personal webpage, although the format has become semi-archaic. I have not kept up with the times, nor have I for some time. I wrote most of the initial HTML code myself, back when people did that. Now I use WordPress, although as a CMS it is an aging platform. I stay with older technologies rather than hop to new ones, as I myself am 53-years old and also aging.
It cannot be avoided. Remaining on the cutting-edge of technology is far from my most important concern. I will not be joining Substack. I am not looking to expand my audience. It is unimportant to me to be part of some intellectual movement or larger social trend.
What is important to me? Why am I doing this? After twenty-four years, why stick with my personal webpage? Well, I wrote three letters to my youngest daughter Elizabeth when she was in utero, and eleven years later I read the letters with her straight off my webpage where they had been awaiting her for years. I always knew one day Elizabeth would read them, but I had to wait. It was such a rewarding experience. So I am writing for my daughters. For my grandchildren. For people who stumble onto my site. For myself, first and foremost. To clarify my own thinking. To engage in the creative process. And thereby to grow my soul.
Simple enough, no?
I am not much interested in being part of a movement or seeking to change public opinion. I will talk about politics occasionally, but politics will go one way or the other and I’m not too invested. A telling moment for me was back in 2011 when Barack Obama was running for re-election and my dad was telling me that the country would either go to hell if Obama was re-elected, or the other way if he lost. “See that guy over there, Dad,” I replied. “His life is going to be pretty much the same either way.” I was right.
Political dogmatism is worse now than it was in 2011. Fighting for one political cause — activism on social media — yuck. I have never yet met a political activist I liked. They are like salesmen. They are trying to sell you something. And I’m not buying.
Twitter — a sentence or two of snark, or a response to such by someone else. The hive mind quivering in anger. It is like the scribble on bathroom walls. A sentence or two here and there. Endless emoting over political squabbles. Trash talk, cheap shots, and empty threats. A shooting gallery, a battleground. Instagram — taking photos of the quotidian, posting them online, exchanging persiflage, and thinking this says something deep about who you are. Posturing in front of a mirror. Mostly photographs. A bright shiny façade. Superficial surfaces. At best Instagram doesn’t tell the deeper truth, and at worst it lies, as do all photographs.
No, thank you.
I have heard that Instagram is the defining feature of Millennial-generation life. Instagram is supposedly the major player, and Twitter is the lesser player. If this is true, it is an indictment, not something to boast of, in my opinion. Look at the online ecosystem today: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Amazon, Tinder, and PornHub? We developed the Internet for this?
I want my webpage to be something different.
I want prose. Paragraphs and pages of thinking and reasoning as clearly stated as I can. The struggles of one man over decades. His clear voice. His larger family. His eventual death. A sort of intellectual diary. A chronicle of a life lived not in vain. A private pursuit, more than a collective one; an individual effort, not a group one. I don’t ever mention my webpage even to my best friends and closest work associates. It is hidden, or semi-hidden.
And that makes it more precious to me.
I would be embarrassed if someone “irl” — in real life — mentioned my online life. It never happens. Almost never. My webpage is private, or semi-private.
I don’t want it to be too “social.” Past a point I’m not too interested in your opinion about what I write. I mean, I don’t want to be rude. I am interested, just not too interested. I don’t market my wepbage; I don’t seek more visitors. People stumble upon it. That is fine.
So here we are. You and I.
Richard, would your webpage be worth the investment of thousands and thousands of hours of intellectual labor over your lifetime? Thousands and thousands of dollars in website hosting costs in the last twenty-five years? All the time and effort? The money?
Yes. Easily.
Well worth it.
My hobby. My passion project. My hidden corner of the World Wide Web.
Not much, but it is mine.
24-years’ duration, still going strong.
There will be more postings, until I die —
So help me, God.
Amen.
