Hating Facebook seems to me like hating the telephone circa 1945, however, in the age of digital media and apps, if it’s free, you’re the product. That is, the personal information that any given site or service gets out of you and your activity is so valuable in and of itself, charging for it is unnecessary.
I’m not here to try convince anyone of anything regarding social media. Only to use some digital aikido on the system to redirect facebook’s power to work for me, if only the tiniest bit. So here I am, blogging. Rather than spend time composing thoughts and handing them over to Mark Zuckerberg I’ll be composing my thoughts here and then linking to them on Facebook so you have to come to www.dougmanelski.com to really stay in touch. I’ve had a .com for ~20 years, it’s about time for it to be more than a digital business card. I’m not “leaving” Facebook. (sorry, some of you) I have no need to boycott or dismiss it entirely (best address book so far) but from now on, like any tool, it can work for me instead of the other way around.
I put thought into what I post, believe it or not, and I don’t want to have to go to the Walmart of communication™ to revisit any conversations I had, links shared, or especially photos I’ve posted. Corporate entities are taking a little more of us every day. Here I’m going to do my best to maintain my individuality in the face of obscenely powerful inhuman entities. That said I realize I’m partnering with another corporate entity, WordPress, to do this. You can’t use the internet without a big corporation or 20. I can’t build my own CMS and WordPress is a fantastically simple and powerful tool that does a good job of managing my site and staying out of my way at the same time. I know how to remove the “powered by WordPress” thing but I’m leaving it because they’re helping people communicate without the need to own and dominate. I feel as good about endorsing it as I can for a household corporate name. I tried redesigning my site by hand (big thanks Aidan Rogers!) then with Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Square Space, and WordPress. Wix was the most fun and easiest but expensive. My host (DreamHost) + WordPress (included with the hosting) represents the sweet spot of ease of use/power/price for me.
The internet still has lots of great things going on for creators but many people hardly ever leave the Facebook domain anymore. So if I were to be able to convince anyone of anything with this post (Haha, I know right?), it would be to carve your own creative path online the best you can. There are a ton of easy DIY tools out there, leave the Facebook garden and go plant your own. A Knuckleball Ranch Blog is also forthcoming. Perhaps I’m fighting so many windmills but I’ll sleep that much better doing the internet on my own terms.
As seen by. . .
Doug
Postscript: After saving but before making this post public I checked in on FB and, new to me, a bunch of official FB entities, including the Zuck himself, were suggested as “friends”. . . The self-fulfilling blog post.™
No thanks, but they can follow me here! Enough said right?
*This is punny, trust me. It will make sense in an upcoming post.
Sing it.