I don’t post here so much anymore. It’s not that my life has become (even) less interesting than it was. Living in Prague and Living with Cancer both generate stories, though the former are more fun to share. I still have thoughts I like to share, but often I don’t.
I remember when blog was fun. When some guy could write about Eggs Over Easy and be the top match on the search engines. Rightfully. Google would never, ever, let a blog like this be a top match now.
With that corporate favoritism, the stream of fun and interesting people who would stumble past and add their own quirky discussion in the comments — and sometimes even become regulars — slowly dried up. Gone are the days when an Izzy or Dr. Pants will happen by.
Those regulars, from Jerk McSweede to Squirrely Joe, built a community here. Not just a hanging-out place, but a utile one. Travel plans were synced. Family news was shared in the comments.
That community (or more realistically that Venn diagram of communities) moved to Facebook, which made it easy to build circles of friends. Then Facebook threw the curveball that to maintain those communities, you would have to pay. And even paying didn’t mean when you sent a message to your group that everyone would get it.
Facebook worked hard to give you the tools to build communities, then killed them.
There are big blog platforms now like Substack, but they are also poisoned by profit drive. You don’t stumble on a writer you like on Substack, you respond to marketing. And sure there are plenty of interesting people writing on those platforms (and even more absolutely reprehensible ones who bring the platform money by saying horrible shit). But money is the drive.
Money is the drive everywhere on the Internet now. Even though I pay for my own server, and cost nothing to anyone, Muddled Ramblings and Half-Baked Ideas does not generate revenue and therefore cannot share revenue with the handful of companies who decide what you see when you log in.
But I’m proud of this dang blog. I’d be amazed if it wasn’t in the top one-percentile of blogs by age. It’s easy for me to imagine circumstances when I start posting here more often. But until then just know that I am still here, and I am still thinking things. We have a pedophile for a president, after all.
Keep shouting, Old Blogger!! Probably about 15 years ago, I taught a Harvard Business School case about Facebook, which was founded in 2004. The students, college seniors in my strategy class, were enamored with Facebook. Many students still had this crazy idea that it was “free”. It wasn’t, of course, as Facebook data mined their personal data, likes and dislikes, etc.. All roads lead to marketing and the profit motive in a capitalist society, and it can be quite overwhelming without the moderating influence of civic-minded nonprofits and a somewhat caring government. Well, all that is out the window now, under the pedophile’s rule. Yet this blog is representative of a key right, one that is being relentlessly eroded by the new administration, our freedom of expression..
Why is it that all Americans are not up in arms about this? I have a subscription to Canada’s top newspaper, The Globe and Mail. If you want to see the contrast in government, peoples’ views of the US -its government, people and businesses- take a gander. The Canadians are certainly up in arms, wondering what happened to their friend next door. . The pedophile set the tone early on by calling for the annexation of Canada as the 51st state. It seemed nuts then, and seems so now to Canadians. It has left a lasting impression. One recent column wondered why Americans did not see the rapid slide into authoritarianism that most Canadians see, as the columnist enumerated many freedoms that were being pressured, slashed and trashed by the current administration. And the “captains of US industry”, including Mark Zuckerberg, bow down to the pedophile.
Never will that happen here. Thank you, nephew, you Old Blogger!
Love, from your even older, Aunt Marie