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Why is Lemmy not a place for thoughts and observations, rather than just links, questions, and memes? And could it be? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Does it have something to do with the rise of smartphones and no one typing on real keyboards? (Maybe why blogs died.)

Is it a consequence of voting, which blogs didn’t have?

What happens to your thoughts? Do you turn them all in the form of a question? Do you tear them down into a Mastodon one-liner and hope a popular person notices it?

If Lemmy had more of ourselves in this way, maybe it would be a healthier place.

Being idle until the media put out an article on something for us to talk about gives them too much power over us.

There’s an actual_discussion community, which isn’t exactly lively. There’s a casualconversation community, and even that’s all in the form of a question.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I tried to have blogs back in the day. People were not terribly interested, and the prospect of having to cultivate being-known so that anyone will see the thing I found unpleasant. It’s strange to think how many people are very driven to promote themselves. Self-promotion feels dirty, and writing for no one feels foolish.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Building an audience over time is exactly how blogs, and publishing in general, work unless you start off with a lot of advertising or endorsements. For better or worse, there's far more content than there is time for a large audience to read it all.

This gives you three choices:

specialize and post in an existing community that's aligned with that specialization. People will nearly always engage, especially if the content is good
specialize and start your own blog. You could even try seeding it by referring people to it from already existing specialized communities. People will know what to expect content wise and keep coming back if the subject you're talking about is interesting to them and the content is good
don't specialize and strike out on your own. If the content is good and you stick with it your audience will eventually grow. This will probably take more time because your audience will initially be looking for content that relates to what they've seen in the past, but what you're really offering is your personality, writing style, world view, etc

Personally, if I'm looking for engagement I choose the first option.