I Do It for Myself

This morning as I was going through my blogroll waiting for my double-height cup of coffee to kick in, I came across Cole’s post about the obvious rewards, or lack thereof, of blogging (or any content creation, really), and it resonated with me. Why DO people like me have websites that we update and maintain and post links to when it genuinely seems like maybe one or two people at most ever notice?

The good thing is that we can do our art because we love it. It really doesn’t matter how great (or small) the response is. As Robert notes, “I’m doing this because I love it. If others like it too, great, but that’s not the main purpose.”

That’s it exactly. It’s not about public notoriety or the dopamine hit of notifications and increasing follower counts. I don’t care at all about those things. I care about doing things I find interesting, and if someone ever finds one of my posts useful, that will be wonderful! That’s what I want! But it’s not what I need in order to keep doing it.

If you’re going to make a business or a large part of your income from your online work, you need eyeballs, and you need “engagement” (I really don’t like that word). But when I see some of my friends obsessing about their follower counts and using the word engagement non-ironically, I just think that I never want to have to live that way. 😄 I’m one of those dumb enthusiasts who doesn’t track anything, has almost no followers, and loves the fact that it’s never going to be about numbers.

But what about you? What are you doing with your website to make it uniquely yours? I like to link to people’s stuff on my links page, whether it be in my Blogroll section or my Cool Site Spotlight. The best of the web is people doing things because they love it, and linking to each other. Let me know on Mastodon what I’m missing!

Linked post: I do it for myself