Writing for myself vs writing for upvotes
I’ve been noticing that when I write a long form journal type of post, I don’t really get any upvotes. But, when I write more about an IDEA (such as a prayer or a checklist) I get a few upvotes, maybe two or three. I was considering turning the viewing of upvotes OFF on a post, but oftentimes what I see on other blogs is that even though the number of upvotes is hidden when you are physically on the post, the number of upvotes appears on the discover page.
I suppose wanting more upvotes is a symptom of being human. It is normal for us to compare ourselves to others because we are complicated, social creatures. Amoebas definitely don’t compare themselves to each other, for example.
I’ve thought to myself “what if I stopped writing public journals and I only wrote about ideas?” That would defeat the purpose of this blog, and also bearblog too. Isn’t bearblog supposed to be the anti social media, social media blogging platform? Do blogs count as social media? I think they do. I don’t think bearblog should remove upvotes, I think they’re a great way to see what a good chunk of the community finds interesting at the time. I find myself wondering if bearblog would ever blow up and then have the same bot problem that Reddit has, such as the problem described in this very viral bearblog post A Reddit Bot Drove Me Insane.
This is part of the reason why I’ve been hesitant to host, say, my professional website on Bearblog. I absolutely love the simplicity and the UI of bearblog though. It’s very easy to set up and maintain. I don’t have to worry about doing commits to a GitHub repository like I do with GitHub pages. I should probably just redo my GitHub pages website, though. Posting my bearblog on LinkedIn doesn’t really feel… the most appropriate at all.
It feels silly to have these thoughts. On Bearblog, you write whatever you want. Upvotes shouldn’t matter and yet I feel this need to write content for a faceless audience instead of writing for myself.