Writing for Humans
Photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash
I first moved to Mastodon in 2017. I know Iâve been searching for Twitter alternatives even then, but it wasnât until 2022, when one of the first great Twitter migrations happened, that I truly went overboard and dived into the Fediverse sea.
I was afraid that shiny object syndrome might occurâafter all, Fediverse/Mastodon was shiny, new, and different.
Now, entering my third year as a semi-active user who has never had a negative experience around these parts, I appreciate the concept and execution of decentralized media.
When technology is integrated based on different ideologies, with its âlightâ or âdarkness,â it attracts different types of moths. I always enjoyed unconventional, even unusual, concepts that most people donât explore. No, I donât think any less of the mainstream audience; I just think I am built differently.
TINY WEB, BIG IDEAS
Mastodon, my primary social network and the only one Iâm currently using, introduced me to various niche concepts, such as Tiny Web. Small web and tiny web (Iâm not a tech guy, so Iâm using these terms interchangeably - if they mean different things, let me know!) sounded fascinating.
I clearly remember the first time I read about it on Dennis Defreyne's blog. I donât know the dude, but I was fascinated by how fast his sites loads (and his weeknotes concept, which I tried myself for three months, but ultimately went back to being a shitty social media meathead). He told me about the 512kb Club, the community of builders focused on building lightweight websites.
It all sounded so amazing: on one side, you have mainstream sites that load more and more slowly each year, packed with trackers youâre having a hard time stopping with blockers, which in turn sometimes slow things down even more.
On the other hand, some people are maximizing their minimalism by creating functionalâand sometimes truly beautifulâwebsites that fit into less than a megabyte.
As a lover of long reads and a writer, I am a fan and in dire need of a functioning, clean design for consuming other peopleâs content and distributing my content. That's why I'm all about RSS readers these days; I add only the content I want and view it how I like. I donât need pre-packed and cluttered interfaces where content is less important than delivering an ad or prompting a reaction.
I also handle all the technical aspects of my websites and, unfortunately, most of the time I am not trying to satisfy my urges, but pack sites with all the mostly unnecessary shit modern âmainstream usersâ might find familiar so that they might come back.
Content might be king, but we keep the carriage that drives it around hard to look at, with all the excessive and unnecessary ornaments. God forbid the king drives around on a functional bike.
THANK YOU, MR. FLETCH
Mastodon brought me happiness again yesterday, when I clicked on a blog post published by journalist Chris Fletch. Although I could bicker about his Napalm Death album rankings and discuss it all they long (âScumâ fan, sorry), Chris inadvertently introduced me to Bear Blog, his blogging platform.
Powered by bear necessities, Bear Blog prides itself on being fast, easy, and content-orientedâno trackers, scripts, bells, and whistles. The free tier is fantastic, and the paid one unlocks numerous additional options.
As I registered in less than five seconds and set up my blog (the one youâre reading), I felt excitement rush through my body and settle in my chest.
This all looked familiar, mainly ideologically, and to a certain extent, technically.
When I started blogging in 2004 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we all used Blogger.ba system. The site remains available, although many community members have given up on blogging and migrated to other social networks as they gained popularity online. These days, it is all based on WordPress, but back then, it had a simple HTML and CSS setup with some additional features Iâm not familiar with (probably).
Bear Blog is more simplistic, but it reminded me of Blogger.ba because your options are limited to a point where you donât feel powerless, but everything feels intentional. You need to learn the basics of HTML and CSS to make changes; however, you don't need to, as starter themes look fantastic on mobile and desktop.
You also need to learn some site codes, delivered through convenient Markdown syntax, to make text more visually appealing than plain text.
Bear Blog and its system feel easy to grasp for someone who was part of the Internet in the 2000s. We were generationally pretty tech-savvy; you had to do it because if you wanted your MySpace profile to stand out, you had to know at least how to copy and paste someone else's style and correct any possible mistakes.
I understand why Bear Blog will likely remain an excellent niche offering foreverâmodern users probably donât find it intuitive immediately and have little patience. In my opinion, everything worth something requires discipline, some learning process, and a little time.
New networks, with their technical complexities and monetization principles, have made writing for an audience prevalent these daysâno matter your thoughts, if you want to reach your audience, you better learn some SEO tips or know someone who will at least set up the technical SEO. Something gets lost during formatting, and trying to fit all the sentences into well-adjusted paragraphs is SO TIRING.
With Bear Blog, the technical part is not something you need to worry about.
By stripping its users of all the options and leaving only a handful available through a learning curve (that isnât hard at all, and thereâs excellent documentation available), Bear Blog is doing something beneficial for the internet thought dealers: instead of the usual direction these days, which is writing for an audience in an algorithm-powered environment that relies on heavy levels of reactive interactivity, we're nudged toward the idea of writing for the sake of writing, something I like to label as writing for humans.
GOOD OLâ WRITING
As a young and dumb punk provocateur, I used Bosnian blogger system to write dumb stuff to stir shit up, although I understand now I came from a good place. I used that platform as a lair for personal mental dogs from hell, and I owned my words - constantly posting publicly and letting my identity be known. I have never created an anonymous profile anywhere in my life.
That is because the underlying idea of my life and writing was always to communicate, even when the first step was challenging status quo and stirring shit up.
That was writing for humans, too. Back then, it was, in a way, a "default" state, because technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. These days, writing for humans is as intentional as it gets. It is a process of connecting and sharing ideas without the urge to optimize for keywords or engage in backlink stuffing, which is one of the most spammy activities. And yes, it is also a refusal to insult the intelligence of your potential readership by delivering them "easily digestible" content served on endless scrolling platform.
Simply writing is freeing. Content like that doesn't lean toward trending algorithmic bullshit, and authors donât tend to monetize their stuff. Although I use the word "content", writing like this doesn't make you a "content creator", but an author, no matter your writing skills level.
Sometimes, especially if it happens in the blogosphere, this writing is âamateurishâ yet amazingly fresh. Itâs so relaxing to read unedited, first-draft, no-emoji storytelling that is not made for machines to push toward someone elseâs screen but for human eyes. I like the mistakes and style issues; I like the human touch.
I will be staying on Bear Blog for some time. It is a blogging platform superpowered by excellent user-friendliness in design, yet it allows for extraordinary surges of creativity and thought-sharing.
I quit social media because it were tiring with its connections, following lists, friends, discovery feeds, UX monstrosities, and bullshit. I enjoy posting content and connecting with others through traditional, slower means like email and guestbooks. I thought they were gone. Guess not.
I could probably race to catch up with a lot of bullshit modern internet creators are churning out right now, but I wonât. Simply because Iâm not interested and it doesnât align with my values.
So fuck videos, short posts, hooks at the beginning. I enjoy reading humans, and I aspire to write for humans. And if you have something to recommend, please use the guestbook or email me.
Iâd be glad to reply with my own two human hands.
Thank you for reading. You can reach me via e-mail or My Mastodon profile.
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Sharing this would be cool, too. Once again, thank you.