I Don't think Bearblog is a social media platform and that's ok
I'm so sorry for blogging about blogging, you can skip this one but there IS a good cat photo at the end lmao
As usual, there will be unrelated photos sprinkled about my post because I'm highly visual; enjoy some birds on a power line from the photo backlog!
I’ve mentioned before that I've gone full hog into RSS and things like Bubbles.town with the intent of reading more blogs which, on the whole has been great! But there's been a steady increase in that space of bloggers being...how to put this, like - incredibly weird about Bearblog. In all directions.
I'm kind of oversimplifying but I keep seeing posts specifically (despite my attempts to filter out blogs posts about blogging) pertaining to Bear as a "community" and like, how the discover feed has malice apparently, and like, yes - metablogging is lame as hell and I'm fucken sorry for even participating, but this has been so prominent I kinda just started writing before I even realized what I was doing. Being part of the problem I guess!
Up front, I’ll be honest with you:
Caring about any of this feels antithetical to the purpose of blogging
Lamenting that a post got "shadowbanned" from the discovery feed or that there's some sort of "Bear conspiracy" where some blogs get all the attention while others wither in obscurity without upvotes, or that there's discrimination against bloggers using the default Bear theme instead of dressing it up, or that a blog on Bear is better (or worse!!) than a blog that's self hosted - this is all fucking WILD, dude!!
I guess if you are blogging for a living or some financial gain and it’s fucking imperative that you have as many eyes on your posts as possible....well, then first off I’m sorry - wouldn't wish that on my enemies, but also that could explain the behavior...maybe?
And like, I say this as an outsider because writing into the void is what I’ve been doing since I got here and it's been way WAY healthier for me than chasing metrics and trends and tracking “readership”. I maintain that a large portion of online society, even those who have 'escaped' the primary social media hegemony to the fringes of 'indieweb' have still been broken by the social media plague of "number go up".
What can I say, Eggbug fixed me
I don't wanna be reductive but Cohost ("COHOST MENTIONED" ALARM SOUNDS) helped me not be that person any more after YEARS of meticulously tracking Twitter stats and website hits and band metrics; since starting this blog I’ve looked at my Bear analytics...maybe twice? Ever?
But back to the post title
The other thing is that (and maybe this is all short-sighted of me) I think it's helpful that I don't view Bearblog as a social media platform in that way. Like sure - there is the (seemingly insidious!!) discover feed and there’s a fair amount of community around code addons and other resources specifically for this platform, but like...two people using the same blog engine to write to their audiences (or the void!!) isn't anything like two people with accounts on the same social media site where their posts and audiences (who would also need accounts on that same platform) interact. At best, it's like two people living in the same city and having different friend groups.
A year or so ago I made this stupid photoshop because when someone I know starts blogging and gives Bear a try, I'm stoked that they are blogging - not because they're on this specific platform1. The only benefit I get from them using Bear is that most of the time they're up and writing faster, and if they have any problems I might be able to help since I've been using it for a while (Which, fuck me, is a bonkers thing to say; I'm coming up on the second year anniversary!!).
So what's the point?
Dude I don't know, man. I guess what I'm saying is that when I'm reading a blog I found on Bubbles, where and how its hosted has no Bearing (I'M SO SORRY, I HAD TO) on the content. I also think it'd be healthier for people if they didn't chase popularity, or if they didn't primarily write for other people, or (and maybe this is the kicker) if they wrote a post that no one read, they'd still celebrate the act of having written something.
Anyway, thanks for reading and / or sorry. Here's your end-of-post cat; his name is Sloth but you need to know that sometimes we call him "Slothy Bottoms" and you can too.
As an edit after publishing, I get that I didn't make this super clear but I thoroughly love Bearblog as a blogging platform. It makes my life easier! I like the post editor, the subscription bonuses, the ease of overall modification - Herman's built a super rad thing here. I just don't think it makes everyone who uses it connected. Would we view that same connection for everyone on the same domain registrar? Email provider? Belaboring the point but you get me.↩