“Tell me, what are words for?” They are for blogging!
Earlier today during an informal espresso live stream in the #indieweb cafe, Spotify was playing an auto-generated daylist, something like “romantic 80s tuesday morning”, and the 1982 song “Words”¹ by the band Missing Persons came on.
When we heard this lyric:
🎶 What are words for when no one listens? 🎶
I remarked half-jokingly in response:
Words are for blogging, whether anyone is listening, reading, or not.
Another participant noted that blogging sometimes feels like screaming into the void.
I noted it doesn’t matter if anyone is reading (or listening), it’s fine to blog for an audience of one, yourself, even just to have something to refer to or reference in the future.
When I write a post it’s often directed at only a small number of people, who may be part of a larger conversation. The point of publishing it publicly is to assert a level of confidence and credibility by the act of “putting it on the permanent record” (since nearly everything blogged is promptly indexed and archived.) with a permalink.
The lyrics have some quite prescient bits, like this:
“No one notices, I think I'll dye my hair blue
Media overload bombarding you with action
It’s getting near impossible to cause distraction”
Written and sung more than forty years ago. Long before the web (or #socialWeb) was a thing.
Rewriting the lyrics as a parody could be a fun project, e.g.:
🎶 What are blogs for when no one reads them? 🎶
some existing lyrics barely need any edits, like:
“It’s like the feeling at the end of the page
When you realize you don't know what you just read”
perhaps an exercise for the reader for now.
Previously: “Inbox Zero” (parody of The Fixx “Saved by Zero”²)
* https://tantek.com/w/InboxZero (2009-01-29 https://tantek.com/twttr/status/1160324190)
This is post 10 of #100PostsOfIndieWeb. #100Posts
← https://tantek.com/2025/055/t1/three-steps-indieweb-cybersecurity
→ 🔮
Glossary
blog
https://indieweb.org/blog
blogging
https://indieweb.org/blogging
permalink
https://indieweb.org/permalink
why blog
https://indieweb.org/why_post
References
¹ https://libre.fm/artist/Missing+Persons/track/Words (YouTube link inside)
² https://libre.fm/artist/The+Fixx/track/Saved+by+Zero (YouTube link inside)
I use #discord every day. No wonder I have some thoughts about its future.
https://axxuy.xyz/blog/posts/2025/discord/
#blogging #blog #blogpost #indieweb #personalwebsite #enshittification
Bringing Static Sites to the Fediverse - Enhancements and Implementations #fediverse #indieweb #activitypub https://www.luisquintanilla.me/feed/bringing-static-sites-fediverse-enhancements-implementations-maho?utm_medium=feed
Simon Willison's AI-Generated Tools Colophon #colophon #indieweb #ai https://www.luisquintanilla.me/feed/willison-tools-colophon?utm_medium=feed
Tsunami ghosts, anti-LinkedIn post, digital gardens, Obsidian discoveries, NPCs and more
A roundup of interesting content I stumbled on recently.
A digital garden on WordPress
Notes on making a digital garden on WordPress
A lot of times the Digital Garden scene seems dominated by developers. People who exist in in-between places like me feel a bit frustrated that the tools used – the static site generators – are so unfriendly to non-developer minds.
So, I’m glad that there are some folks who are building digital gardens on WordPress.
I have plans to use Obsidian and a plugin – probably either Quartz, Eveloppe or digital garden – to generate my static site one day, but this is a good workaround while I plan the possibly very complicated transition.
I did think about using Astro but the mechanics of it seem so frightening.
Ghostly encounters: The legacy of the 2011 tsunami in Japan
Do I believe in ghosts? I mean, I lived in a haunted house, so…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=tr4ULTszi00&si=NbwiGtqnL2DvVsMq
The anti-Linkedin post
I’m happy to announce my retirement from UX.
Wonder if this guy wants more publicity, but I really appreciated his very, very honest LinkedIn post about retiring from UX. Had a look at his profile, and it looks like he made the transition from teaching to UX, not the easiest transition to make. And definitely not easy to leave due to the sunk cost-ness of it all.
If most content on the Internet is cruft, how do we find the original stuff?
“We’re about to drown in a sea of pedestrian takes. An explosion of noise that will drown out any signal. Goodbye to finding original human insights or authentic connections under that pile of cruft.” – The dark forest and generative AI
Cool software discoveries
Magpies building a nest in a tiny balcony in China
Video on xiaohongshu has been taken down, sadly, but it’s here on my Mastodon post.
If you’re wondering why the balcony is so tiny, if they’re anything like Malaysia (and I find many apartments in China very much like ours), it’s meant for the air conditioning compressor:
Think before you click.
“The point: there is so much content on the internet that makes us feel crappy without offering any actual information that can help you make the world a better place. When I’m taking good care of myself, I’m actively working to ignore such garbage.” – Justin Pot in his article, Think before you click
How I approach Malaysian political news, really. Heck, even world news these days.
“My neck hurts”
https://youtu.be/oQFg20ZDyH0?si=SSzWruVTr_jA0c4p
Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that while our life may suck, it may not suck as badly as an NPC’s.
@renne @tiagojferreira @pBaesse @augustocc @gmgall @fediverse @fediverso @academicos @internet @tecnologia Na Alquimídia estamos incentivando muito o uso dos plugins ActivityPub https://alquimidia.org/fediverso/tecnologias/wordpress/ e Friends no WordPress. Inclusive, criamos um tema do Friends para melhorar a experiência do usuário: https://github.com/alquimidia/fedipress Acredito que essa seja uma das grandes ações para fortalecer a #IndieWeb.
I've had so many conversations with internet and non-internet people alike in the last six months about getting off of corporate social media or otherwise taking control of your life online that I've started a conscious project to reboot it for myself and document the process. Here's the first post: https://ideastore.dev/blog/Start-the-Reboot/ #indieweb #deplatform #socialweb #blogs #blogging You can also follow the #octothorpe https://octothorp.es/~/reboot-blog
is everybody indie-rsvp-ing to the homebrew website club tomorrow ? #indieweb
Cool things you can do in Mastodon and perhaps you weren't aware of:
* Create an RSS link from any Mastodon profile
* Validate your profile easily using your personal domain
* Use a column interface à là Tweetdeck (RIP)
Share your favorite use cases!
https://fredrocha.net/2025/03/18/how-i-use-mastodon-in-2025/
is everybody indie-rsvp-ing to the homebrew website club tomorrow ? #indieweb
🧡 Tuesday Tips #1 🧡
https://smallweb.thecozy.cat/blog/tuesday-tips-1/
@indieweb @smallweb @neocities ##indieweb ##neocities ##nostalgia ##oldweb ##smallweb ##Tips ##webdesign ##webdev ##webrevival
🗯️ The Fear of Vanishing | And So It Goes…
I just moved my website over to Bear because it's just so darned nice!
For a while I've viewed my website as my digital playground, so naturally last week's Webmention adventure—plus all the amazing blogs I've been diving into via RSS lately —have me wanting to get more involved with the #IndieWeb community. https://aboutmonica.com/blog/hello-indie-web/