This blog has a comment system
The day before we recorded our episode of Hotfix, Scott Werner asked a fair question: "so, if you're off social media and your blog doesn't have a comment system, how do you want people to respond to your posts? Just email?"
I answered, "actually my blog does have a comment system."
Here's how to leave a comment on this web site:
- Read a post
- Think, "I want to comment on this"
- Draft a post on your blog
- Add a hyperlink to my post
- Paste an excerpt to which you want to respond
- Write your comment
- Hit publish
I admit, it's quaint. It involves a number of invisible steps, like 2.1 where you start a blog (which is actually pretty easy but not free of friction). You should try it.
It is 2025 and the Web—the capital-W Web—is beleaguered. The major platforms have long-since succumbed to enshittification, but their users aren't going anywhere. Some among us courageously voice their dissent, but always from the safe confines of their favorite walled garden. They drop a note in the jailkeeper's suggestion box as they scroll past the Squarespace ads littering their algorithmic timelines. Others have fled to open and open-flavored networks, but everyone eventually realizes they can't go home again.
But that's not why I want you to adopt this blog's commenting system. I'm not a high-minded individual who cares about the intellectual project of the World Wide Web as a bastion for free expression or whatever the fuck. No. I just had a super rad time on the Internet from 2000 to 2006 and I want to do my part to bring it back.
Back then, I would find a blog and follow it—via its feed when possible, or else by adding it to a folder of bookmarks—and check it daily.
But what about discoverability? How did anyone find these websites? Bloggers couldn't rely on platforms' social graphs or algorithmic timelines to build awareness, so they had to bake discoverability into the product. Some sites had a "blogroll" of recommendations in the sidebar. But the most effective approach was the art of "blogging as a conversation." When an author read something that provoked them to write, they'd link to the offending piece, excerpt it, and provide their own commentary. And because humans are vain, the original post's author would frequently circle back and write their own response to the response. The net effect was that each author's audience would get exposure to the other writer. Even if the authors were in violent disagreement, readers of one might appreciate the other's perspective and subscribe to them.
Blogging as a conversation—as a comments section—was valuable because it was purely positive-sum. As an author, I benefit because another author's opinions inspired me to write. The other author benefits because linking to them offers access to my readership. My readers benefit because they're exposed to complementary and contrasting viewpoints.
Growth was slow and organic but more meaningful and durable. It was a special time.
More on my personal history with blogging
If I really enjoyed someone's blog, I'd rush to read their stuff first. If an author's posts weren't so stimulating, I wasn't shy about unsubscribing. And I could afford to be picky—there was no shortage of content! Even with aggressive curation, by 2005 I had subscribed to so many feeds in Google Reader that I struggled to stay on top of them all. My grades suffered because I was "j-walking" hundreds of blog posts each day instead of doing homework.
Then, Facebook's feed, Tumblr, and Twttr came along, and they took the most enjoyable parts of surfing the 1.0 Web—novel information and connectivity with others—and supercharged them. They were "good Web citizens" in the same way the closed-source, distributed-to-exactly-one-server Bluesky is today. The timelines were reverse chronological. They handled the nerdy tech stuff for you. None of the feeds had ads yet.
Blogging didn't stand a chance.
I failed to see it at the time, but blogging did have one advantage over the platforms: it was a goddamn pain in the ass. Whether you flung files over an FTP client or used a CMS, writing a blog post was an ordeal. If you were going to the trouble of posting to your blog, you might as well put your back into it and write something thoughtful. Something you could take pride in. Something with a permalink that (probably wouldn't, but) could be cited years later.
The platforms offered none of that. You got a tiny-ass text area, a stingy character limit, and a flood of ephemera to compete with. By demoting writing to a subordinate widget of the reading interface, the priority was clear: words were mere grist for the content mill. The shame of it all was that these short-form, transient, low-effort posts nevertheless sated many people's itch to write at all. I was as guilty of this as anyone. From 2009 through 2020, I devoted all my writing energy to Twitter. Except for that brief year or two where Medium was good, I basically stopped thinking in longform. Instead, I prided myself on an ability to distill 2,000-word essays down to 140-character hot takes. Many of those takes reached millions of people and made me feel good for a very brief amount of time.
My brain was cooked. When it finally sank in, I quit.
It took almost three years to recover. I'm on the other side now, and am happy to report I can now think thoughts more than a sentence or two long.
Last night, I got dinner with two old friends, Chris Nelson and Joshua Wood. Josh asked how it's been since I quit paying attention to social media. I thought about the unfinished draft of this post.
In truth, this blog and its attendant podcast empire have been a refuge for my psyche. A delightful place to share pieces of myself online. Somewhere to experiment in both form and format. A means of reclaiming my identity from a smattering of social media profile pages and into something authentic and unique.
Today, as the platforms wane, it feels like this conversational approach to blogging is seeing new life. As a readership has slowly gathered around this blog, I've separately been curating a fresh list of thoughtful bloggers that inspire me to write. Maybe I'll add a blogroll to my next redesign. I'm already writing more linkposts.
In short, blogging might be back. Hell, I just came back from coffee with my friend Anthony, and—without my having brought up the topic—he showed me his new blog.
So, if you're considering engaging with my comment system—if you're thinking about starting a blog or dusting off your old one—here's some unsolicited advice:
- Do it for you. Priority one is taking the time to grapple with your thoughts, organize your ideas, and put them into words. Priority two is reaching the finish line and feeling the pride of authorship. That anyone actually reads your work should be a distant third place
- Focus on building an audience rather than maximizing reach. Getting in front of eyeballs is easier on the platform, but it's fleeting. Platforms reward incitement, readers reward insight. Success is a lagging indicator of months and years of effort, but it's long-lasting. I genuinely believe each of the readers of this site are as valuable as a hundred followers on social media
- Give your blog your best work. Don't waste your creative juices trying to be clever on someone else's app. Consider syndicating crossposts to your social accounts as a breadcrumb trail leading back to your homepage. You can do this with Buffer, Publer, SocialBee, or my upcoming POSSE Party
- Cut yourself some slack. Pretty much everyone is an awful writer. If you saw how long it takes me to write anything of substance, you'd agree that I'm an awful writer, too. Thankfully, good ideas have a way of shining through weak rhetoric and bad grammar. All that matters is training this learned response: have an idea, write it down, put it out
That's all I've got. If you choose to leave a comment on this post on your own blog, e-mail it to me, and I'd be delighted to read it. Maybe it'll inspire me to write a response! 💜