POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) is a cool idea that works for a lot of indie bloggers… just not me. Occasional cross-posting, sure. But not all the time.
A lot of people are so comfortable in their skin that they can be the same person no matter where they go. Me, though? I’m only on a few different places online, and each one has a different purpose. I see my different accounts as a digital tapestry of me.
I’m going to behave differently shopping at Costco than I am at a party where everyone’s getting shithoused. I’m going to act different at a work meeting than I am sitting on the couch watching TV with the family.
Different social media sites are like using different tools. A sledge hammer works really well to drive a stake but I wouldn’t use it to put together IKEA furniture. Unless I’m just really pissed off about how bad I am at putting together IKEA furniture. Which is not out of the question.
On Bluesky, I’m mostly shitposting and maybe sharing a tiny bit of personal lore every once in a while. On Micro.blog, I go deeper on random thoughts I have about an article or something else I read or watched and want to talk more in depth about. I don’t even post on Tumblr; I just reblog stuff I vibe with. I read a lot of posts and occasionally comment on Reddit, but I’d never share one of my blog posts there.
Reminds me of when I used to work at this Honda dealership. When I was in training, the owner of the company was always saying things like “let people know who you are, and what you do! Always be selling!” Most people don’t want to be followed around at Fourth of July or a wedding by a used car salesman who always be selling though. Likewise, people who follow me on Bluesky or random people on Reddit or Tumblr probably don’t care too much about my boring takes on the new iPhone, why I love markdown and RSS so much, or a snarky one-liner I slapped at the bottom of a link post.
I will say running a Leaflet blog for a while and sharing every post to Bluesky helped overcome a lot of my stage fright. But it’s also what brought me to realize what I’m writing about in this post.
Maybe I’m just too online, but I like having a shitposting account on Bluesky, a blog, a Tumblr, a Reddit account, a FARK account (yes a FARK account) and so on. That works for me. There’s so many different philosophies on what a blog should or shouldn’t be… just find a place you like and talk about the kinda shit you want to talk about. Find a few, and talk about a few different shits. The web is a vast place, I don’t want an exact clone of myself on every stage.