I joined Micro.blog!
After years of hearing Alan Jacobs sing the praises of Micro.blog, I created an account this week. Not only that, I’m able to host my micro blog on this website’s domain; so instead of eastbrad.micro.blog, the URL is micro.bradeast.org. In fact, I added “Micro” as an option on the header menu above, sandwiched in between “Media” and “Blog.” In a sense you’re technically “leaving” this site, but it doesn’t feel like it. In this I was also following Alan’s lead. Thank you, ayjay “own your own turf” dot org!
Now: Why did I join micro.blog? Don’t I already have enough to do? Don’t I already write enough? Isn’t my goal to be offline as much as possible? Above all, wasn’t I put on earth to do one name thing, namely, warn people away from the evils of Twitter? Aren’t I the one who gave it up in June 2020, deactivated it for Lent in spring 2022, then (absent-mindedly) deleted it a year later by not renewing the account? And didn’t regret it one bit? Don’t I think Twitter and all its imitators (Threads, Notes, et al) unavoidably addict their users in the infinite scroll while optimizing for all the worst that original sin has to offer?
What, in a word, makes micro blogging (and Micro.blog in particular) different?
Here’s my answer, in three parts: why I wanted to do this; how I’m going to use it; and what Micro.blog lacks that makes it distinct from the alternatives.
First, I miss what Twitter offered me: an accessible public repository of links, images, brief commentary, and minor thoughts—thoughts I had nowhere else to put except Twitter, and thoughts that invariably get lost in the daily shuffle. I tend to call this main blog (the one you’re reading right now) a space for “mezzo blogging”: something between Twitter/Tumblr (i.e., micro writing and sharing) and essays, articles, and books (i.e., proper macro writing). I suffer from graphomania, and between my physical notebook and texting with friends, I still have words to get out of my system; minus all the nonsense on Twitter, the reason I stayed as long as I did was that. (Also the connections, friends, and networking, but the downsides of gaining those things were and are just too great, on any platform.)
Second, I am going to use my micro blog in a certain way. I’m not going to follow anyone. I’m not going to look at my timeline. I’m not going to let it even show me follows, mentions, or replies. It’s not going to be a place for interaction with others. I’m not going to dwell or hang out on it. In a sense I won’t even be “on” it. I have and will have no way of knowing if even a single soul on earth reads, clicks, or finds my writing there. It exists more or less for one person: me. Its peripheral audience is anyone who cares to click from here to there or check in on me there from time to time.
What am I going to be doing, then? Scribbling thoughts that run between one and four sentences long; sharing links to what I’m reading online; sharing books and images of what I’m reading IRL; in short, putting in a single place the grab bag of “minor” writing that pulls me daily in a hundred directions: email, messages, WhatsApp, even Slack (once upon a time). E.g., right now I’m enthralled by the NBA playoffs, but not only does no one who reads this blog care about that; my thoughts are brief, ephemeral, and fleeting. But I have them, and I want to remember what they were! So now I put them there, on the micro blog.
I don’t, for what it’s worth, have any kind of organizational system for note-taking, journaling, or any such thing. I do keep a physical journal, but it’s mostly a place for first-draft brainstorming; it’s not much of an archive. I don’t use Drafts or Tot or Notes or Scrivener or even an iPad or tablet of any kind. Nothing is housed on the cloud; nothing is interconnected, much less interoperable. I’ve always toyed with trying Evernote—I know people who love it—but it’s just never appealed to me, and I don’t think I’m the type who would benefit from it or use it well. My mental habits and ideas and writing instincts are too diffuse. At the same time, I love the idea of a one-stop shop for little thoughts, for minor scribbles, in brief, for micro blogging. That’s how I used Twitter. I ultimately just got fed up with that broken platform’s pathologies.
So, third, what makes Micro.blog different? In a sense I’ve already answered that question. It’s not built to do what Twitter, Threads, and Substack Notes are meant to do. There’s no provocation or stimulation. There’s no hellish algorithm. It doesn’t scale. It’s not about followers or viral hits. It’s self-selecting, primarily because you have to pay for it and secondarily because it’s not a way to build an audience of thousands (much less millions). It’s for people like me who want a digital room of their own, so to speak, without the assault on my attention, or the virus of virality, or the infinite scroll, or the stats (follows, like, RTs) to stroke or shrink my ego, or the empty promise that the more I post the more books I’ll eventually sell. No publisher or agent is going to tout my Micro.blog to justify an advance. It’s just … there. For me, and max, for a few other dozen folks.
And anyway, I’m giving it a 30-day free trial. No commitments made just yet. I already like it enough that I expect to fork over $5/month for the privilege. But we’ll see.
Either way, this is all one long way of saying: See, I’m no Luddite. I use Squarespace and Instapaper and Firefox and Spotify and Libby and Letterboxd and now Micro.blog. I might even get to ten whole quality platforms one day.
Clearly, I don’t hate the internet. I’m just picky.
