This is a rather personal story I haven’t told many people, so I’m a little nervous about putting it out there. But before we get to the story, a few words about the Medium on which it is written.
Medium is a new platform recently founded by some of the creators of Twitter and Blogger. Sort of like a gigantic, collaborative blog, Medium seeks to escape the distraction-laden world of widgets, ads and visual noise constantly competing for our attention, and provide a simple space to read, write and discuss stories and ideas in peace. Articles are left to stand or fall on their own, as their ranking is determined not by the popularity of the writer or the recency of publication, but by the quality and relatability of the content – theoretically, at least. This is measured by how many people read the articles through to the end, and/or click the “recommend” button at the end of the posts.
The tagline is “A better place to read and write things that matter.” As you can probably tell from my own blog’s similar tagline, “getting to the heart of matters with strangers and friends,” I was instantly intrigued when I discovered it a couple of months ago, thanks to fellow WordPress blogger Michael Sarcasas at The Frailest Thing. Anyone can join up as a reader, but as they are still in the building process, you need an invitation to create content of your own. I am very excited to now be invited to write, the prospect of which was one of my primary motivators for joining Twitter in the first place (you need a Twitter account to apply).
Anyways, without further adieu, here is the story: How To Destroy An Antique Piano. Please give it a read, a “recommend,” and let me know what you think in the comments, either here or over at Medium. Cheers!
Breaking Moulds 
So random! I literally just followed TheFrailestThing– begrudgingly because I don’t like blogs that don’t have like buttons. I’m feeling better about my decision because it’s by mentioned my so many of my fave bloggers, though. I’m off to read your piano piece now. 🙂
Apparently some people are too cool for like buttons, haha. He tends to blog about technology, social media and such though, so I would bet he has some well-thought-out reason for doing away with the like button. Don’t ask me what it is, though! (O_o)
Thanks for checking out my piece on Medium! 😀
I’ll take the begrudging follow! And, actually, I don’t have a really deep reason for not having the follow button. Mostly, it was an aesthetic choice. I didn’t quite like the look of it and I was trying for a really minimalist look, so I decided to ditch it.
Cheers!
Haha, well, the writing sucked me in.. and so did all the geek words, 😀 I’m just the world’s worst commentor– really, I am– so no “like” button means that no one knows I came by, which is disappointing. But I did come by, and it was awesome… as to be expected by something suggested by Janelle. 🙂
^^haha, thanks! But your comments are always so encouraging, you are far from the world’s worst commentor. You’d have to compete with a lot of trolls if you really wanted to win that title 😉
First, I realized I should’ve written “like” button, not “follow,” but I think the point survived. Secondly, I never thought of that angle on the “Like” button. While, I’m sure your comments would be perfectly adequate, there is one way of registering a “Like”: you can still Like a post from the WordPress Reader and I do get a notification. Thanks for reading and thanks to Janelle for the plug! : )
“Medium seeks to escape the distraction-laden world of widgets, ads and visual noise constantly competing for our attention, and provide a simple space to read, write and discuss stories and ideas in peace.”
I find this interesting; it’s how I try to keep my own blogs. I’ve often wondered if I’m alone in my thoughts about keeping a blog instead of ‘blogging’. I see keeping a blog as a sort of public journal, a legitimate sharing of one’s self and thoughts with the world as one sees fit and relative, of course, to those that choose to read it.
I don’t see this very often, rather I see people selling themselves through ‘blogging’, with most writing in the same (or similar enough) styles with an up-beat tempo to the text. These posts are often ‘liked’ and sometimes interacted with, though minimally when reflected back against the number of people ‘following’ the blog. If there are a lot of ‘likes’ on a given post or series of posts it’s often nominated for an ‘award’ and there appear to be lots of them. It’s kind of like bubble gum pop songs getting radio play and then sometimes getting the artist a Grammy nod.
I’m sure this all sounds terribly cynical and that’s because it is. I don’t follow very many blogs because the writing is often either bad or vapid, sometimes both, and it is a frustratingly common occurance. It truly seems as if keeping a blog is much more about marketing oneself and very little else. What do you think?
It does sound a little cynical but I’d expect nothing less 😉
I like to keep my blog minimalistic and simple as well, but in looking for advice on building my blog, I sometimes worry that people may not want to stick around because my header is too plain, or I don’t have enough things (links and pictures and such) to keep them around. I like that Medium takes away this pressure under the premise that if you simply write well the readers will come.
However, what I do appreciate about WordPress is the building of a community, so for me it’s not so much about just putting my words into an empty expanse of nothingness regardless of who reads them or not, nor is it about selling myself. It’s about sharing my ideas with people to whom they may mean something, and having conversations with those people, trying to figure the world out a little more along the way… and on a more personal level, keeping my writing skills and intellect tuned while I live in a country where 90% of my conversations are about the weather (>_<)
I do get turned off by blogs that feel like, as you say, they're just trying to sell themselves (buy my book! Like all my things!), or the content seems to focus so much more on quantity over quality (a post a day? Pshaw. I post three times a day). That being said I think people blog for many different reasons, so I'm hesitant to criticize too heavily. If I don't like a blog I don't have to read it, and browsing blogs does sometimes feel like a chore, but every once in awhile I find a diamond amidst the coal, so it's worth it! 🙂
“[F]or me…[it’s] about sharing my ideas with people to whom they may mean somethingand having conversations with those people, trying to figure the world out a little more along the way… and on a more personal level, keeping my writing skills and intellect tuned while I live in a country where 90% of my conversations are about the weather[.]”
This really resonates with me. I remember hitting a period where the quality of my writing went down, likely because of the influence of too much German philosophy. (Kant breaks brains.) A professor of mine said that if you want to get better at writing you have to practise it, that the quality of your writing reflects the quality and clarity of your thinking. That stuck with me and from then on I actually had a reason to keep a journal, something I was never able to do up until that point.
Now that resonates more than ever since I am outside of both undergraduate and graduate schools and have no one to share ideas with, no one to communicate with on a deep and technical level. Perhaps a large part of why people tend to not comment on my posts? They’re rather…forceful and thought-out. Perhaps this leaves readers not inclined toward critical analysis to join in because they are either intimidated or think there is nothing they can add?
Whatever the case, I keep writing this way because it makes sense to me. Who knows, maybe someone with a similar enough mindset will come along and conversation will ensue. That’s the hope anway. ^^