A Serious Talk on Not-So Serious Grounds

Well, time for a little seriousness here. I have been avoiding the “man behind the curtain” talk because it's never fun for a site creator to talk about how the sausage is made. Metaphors aside, I had made an important decision for the site. I am ending my subscription for the “Light Plan” offered by the site builder and going with “free”. As far as I know, this is not going to change the blog and how it functions. And I believe I can still add to the site if needed, such as a book update or adding something new.

But there will be advertisements. And hopefully, the ads will not be intrusive or . . . DANK!

So why have I decided to do this? Well, September is the month for the subscription to be renewed and it was left on Auto-Renew until I just cancelled it. I just recently got a new vehicle and need to minimize my “fun” spending for now. But monetary reasons are not the decision making factor why I am doing this. The big thing is the elephant in the room:

“No one is coming to the site and . . . I am okay with that.”

Sad? Not to me. I tried with Bluesky and just could not stand being on a social media platform. And I cannot stand being on any social media site, Facebook, X, and such. Because of this, the site has not gotten any traffic. According to the dashboard on the site builder, I have had . . . about five individual visitors, which are likely my friends who I linked to the site for LOLz. And maybe a few bots but truth be told, the bots are not going to find anything of interest on the site. So, they move on.

And even though the views show a number, it is likely me checking the blog once it goes live. I know this because many, many of the blogs are a big fat 0. Which is kind of amazing, right? I have a website, I do blogs and after posting them, I don’t even look at them afterwards. I’ve never been narcissistic and that is prime evidence of that.

And the only comment on the site is from Zach the day it launched. And I am oddly okay with this. I am fine with shouting into the void. I work in retail and having to deal with people face-to-face is exhausting. To deal with hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of disembodied voices all shouting at me through text . . . that does not sound like a fun time. And I want to have fun with the website.

I like to write. And I have my day job, and daily life consumes my time enough. To have to monitor, reply, and cope with the site having traffic . . . that would eat up so much time and mental energy. But the thing is, I like having the site. I like having a place to just vent that might be viewed by a few dozen random people. Some of my favorite sites I found during the Dial-up Age were completely random finds and I remember them fondly. And eventually, their updates stopped and I lost interest without any new content.

I still plan to do updates monthly and maybe post the occasional article. But I cannot pretend that I am going to be on social media and post links to the blog and build a community and blah-blah. And if I’m not investing any real time to do any of that, then why spend real money when there are plenty of real world things that money could be used for.

Honestly, I am continuing the site for my own laughs and to give myself something to write once a month. It’s like an on-line journal which, in hindsight, I should have gone to a site like livejourney and just made random blog updates.

Heck, I went on to “Goodreads” out of curiosity sake and apparently . . . you follow readers on the site. Not the authors or publishers . . . you follow the readers. I read but should someone follow me because of my random opinion? See, that is a question I should not be asking. Influencer culture has changed the way things are in the world and . . . I still don’t get it. Because one minute an influencer is like the source of all answers and advice. Then the next minute they do something stupid and are cancelled.

The internet these days goes by so fast, information goes at light speed, so many people posting so much on all kinds of platforms, after platforms, after platforms and ugh! With all of this constant move-move-move, LOOK AT ALL THE THINGS, ALL AT ONCE, NOW-NOW-NOW!

How do I stand out? And as I ask myself: “how do I stand out”, I ask myself: “. . . do I want to?” And the answer:

NO! HELLL NAH! NOPE, ALLL THE NOPE!

And this attitude, this philosophy, if you would, is why my writing is going to be a hobby. I take no pleasure in people noticing me. I never have. EVER! Which is all a me thing. I know some out there live off of the views, the sub-counts, the FANs! Me? Every time I think about such a thing, I stop myself and ask . . . would that make me happy? I have been on the internet long enough to know it is not all doom and gloom and trolls and the absolute DANK of humanity.

There is light, there is positive, there are like-minded people out there who would enjoy what I write. And with their encouragement I could grow and be something more. But every time I am on social media it becomes “visual noise” and I become disgusted with the blur of information and shouting, so much shouting down walls and feeds and threads, constant, constant, constant!!

My brain is on fire just thinking about this!!!

[Takes deep breath]

[Exhales, slowly]

. . . okay, I have not written my own thing much in a long time. More than a month has gone by and all I have done is work with Zach on the next Last Job. Which I am grateful to Zach for giving me something to work on, something to do. But I am in a place right now where I like to be solo. Work is a thing, it will always be a thing, and right now, I feel like I’m being spread thin.

I cannot spend real money on my hobby, not right now, not with how I am feeling and how things are. And who knows, maybe going free and having ads will lead to something positive. But I have not written anything of mine AND finished it in a while. And I have not published my own work yet. It will happen, I am sure it will. And when I finally do, I will actually feel good about my efforts, then maybe I can get over my fear of social media and grow as an author.

Fear of social media, wonder what that phobia is called?

. . .

Hey, look at what I just found on a Google Search:

“A specific fear of posting content or interacting on social networking sites is often called visiobibliophobia.”

VISIOBIBLIOPHOBIA

Look at that wordy phobia. It’s just as ugly as social meda. How fitting. It’s like an eldritch horror name. I shiver at the sight of it. Actually, social media is like an Old One, you stare at it, you go mad.

Well, anyway, time to wrap up the rant. I’ll check on the site once the second anniversary date comes, since that is when the subscription ends. And I am going to pay for the domain name, the price on that is reasonable. I would like to keep “buckbloombooks” if possible. If not, the site will be under something else. I have been thinking “buckbloomsbrain” would be a nice new name. Since the site has been more about stuff from my brain than anything book related.

Jeez, I’m at 1300+ already and this was just going to be a short rant. But this has been nice. A nice vent-rant. I might do more of these. They feel good.

Good Luck and if you have come this far, say “Hello” in the comments!

—BUCK

PS:

I love this image so much that I had to add it just to cheer me up.

PPS:

I decided last minute also to link this blog with my favorite posts on the site. You know, to balance the serious with some silly. I would do more then three but three is the limit. I do enjoy the site. And maybe I'll finally feel up to sharing it. Someday.