bombs in bottles
I've been overthinking POSSE (Publish n Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere) for a while now, and I think I'll go on doing it right now, thanks.
The basic principle is that one publishes to one's own site, then "syndicates" by republishing and/or posting links "elsewhere." "Elsewhere" is defined by the user, but typically includes things like one's own social media feeds.
There's a recent starbreaker.org post that keeps going around in my head about a potential small-web approach to POSSE:
tl;dr Syndicate your stuff to other small-web sites, like Bear, Mataroa, write.as, Dreamwidth, and so on.
I'm torn between two positions here:
1. Sometimes I write stuff I think is halfway decent, or that I stand behind, or that I think is important to say when I say it. Stuff I think is sufficiently important to deserve to be in front of larger audiences.
(1.5 I am incredibly lazy and have ADHD and am usually done with a thing when I've written it, hence why I don't pitch more of this stuff to major outlets.)
(1.75 Also have you ever dealt with a major outlet? It's work. I don't blog to do work; I blog outside of work, on purpose.)
2. BUT: Do I just think my work needs a larger audience because I am vain about it? Like any mother, do I only think my kids are beautiful and talented because they are mine? Is my interest in publishing to a "wider audience" based in nothing more than my own personal vanity?
Which leads me to:
3. What is the point of POSSE, if not to "reach a wider audience," and what is the point of "reaching a wider audience" if it's neither monetary nor vanity?
Which is why, even though part of me thinks Matthew's "syndicate but on the small web" idea is a good one, I haven't done anything about it. I'm allergic to blogging for money, and I can't find another reason to do it than personal vanity, which I don't want to indulge.
Lately, though, the news in the US and elsewhere is starting to push me in another direction:
4. Syndicating because *I* want to get to have some of these conversations with more people. Because *I* am tired of feeling crazy and alone.
I've always been pretty good at predicting major changes - good enough that I could have been a Wall Street darling if I hadn't been born with a wary skepticism of money and a driving desire to be Left the Hell Alone by the world in general. I was an early adopter of every major social media platform between MySpace and Snapchat (inclusive). Calling the general direction of tech and advertising has kept me in lucrative client contracts for nearly twenty years.
(4.75 Part of the reason I don't pitch more writing to major outlets is that I don't have to; I make a lot more money for a lot less effort writing business stuff behind the scenes than I ever would turning out articles for The Atlantic or the Guardian or any other masthead.)
(4.80 in Little Women, Jo makes $100 for selling a short story to a magazine, thus demonstrating that writer rates have stayed steady since the mid-1800s.)
This hasn't always been a good superpower. In fact, I usually call it Cassandra Syndrome, because it usually ends up with me being told I'm paranoid/overreacting/hysterical (another reason it hasn't managed to make me a billionaire). But it's always been a reliable one. I have never liked the direction the world is going, but I have always had a bead on it. Like Ned Brannick, I always know which way is Fisher.
Not anymore. The last 80ish days (or years, I can't tell anymore) have upended that for me. What I'm getting back of it is genuinely terrifying - so much that I don't want to write about it. I want to be wrong. I'm usually not wrong.
Small-web POSSE might be a way for me to reach more people so that I can talk to more people about what-all is going on.
I have less than no interest in doing this on social media again. The thought of logging into Twitter feels exactly like the thought of hitting my own head with a hammer. I have no interest in committing deliberate self-harm.
But I still have my Bear blog and a Mataroa account. I'm rather excited to learn Dreamwidth is still a thing. Maybe small-web POSSE helps me deal with the state of...all this.
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