Wanting to be known but not by who knows you
I'll be honest, the topic of this blog comes from a shame I feel in... Yearning for attention without knowing how to play it off in a way that still gives me what I want. Bit of a word salad there, hope you get what I mean.
It's also worth me noting that I don't want to bog anyone down with the nuclear-level self-loathing I'll be exploring in this post. If you're participating in Blaugust, Augustory1 or are just a blogger yourself, don't let this post make you feel bad for actually enjoying the craft. This is just a retrospective of some insecurities I've largely grown out of.
In reading other peoples' Augustories,2 I noticed a lot of them started out young, out of a legitimate passion for writing what came to mind or what otherwise mattered to them most. I, on the other hand, historically struggled to enjoy blogging in the same way, for maybe a few reasons(?):
- I'm shallow and I love a strong aesthetics, but my strive to achieve a satisfying visual identity superseded any legitimate interest in writing?
- I'm shallow and I saw blogging as (probably subconscious but still true) a means to build an online brand for myself?
- I'm shallow and I didn't really have a plan or idea for how I wanted to be perceived, I just wanted to be perceived?
- I'm shallow and I never fully committed to trying anyway because I didn't know what to write that would bring me attention?
By extension, I struggled to journal privately because I knew no one was interested in reading them or would get the opportunity, lest I make an ass of myself and scan my pages, so I saw no point; "I do enough thinking, I don't need to write it down," (younger me, missing the point of journaling).
That's all a bit sad on its own (God knows we have social media and niche internet celebritydom to blame for these misconceptions I had as a kid) but I think the more interesting side to it is how, if I wanted, I could make my blog everyone's business. I have mutuals, I have friends, I have a lover, I have a family. And yet I feel so self-conscious at the thought of all of them reading this blog. It isn't even like I'm saying anything particularly incriminating (one of these days, you'll read the Poop story), I just vent and occasionally make a good recommendation.3
What I think happened is that, over time, I became quite enamoured by the image of a quiet, nonchalant cool person. See, in school, I was just quiet. I have a degree now so I can't do that any more, I need my quietness to mean something. What else can it mean beyond... Cool? Matt Bernstein made a really good point in one of his videos (I wish I could remember but it was such a small tangent in a much wider deep dive) about the growing class disparity in Instagram bios and how giving away too much information is an admission of your lower class. When you're known, you don't need to introduce yourself.4
Eventually, I developed a negative view of "trying too hard," which I don't think is exclusive to me. I reckon it's a generational thing, we're all so conscious of how we can be perceived, even uploaded and made a talking point without our consent, so we think about our public behaviours early and become fearful of being the ones who try too hard or act performative or act out. Going back to my previous point, if the people who knew me realised I was talking way too much on a public platform, that could read as me attention-seeking, which is the antithesis of my cool quiet persona.
It hits me that my attention-seeking is a reflection of how disinterested the people I care about are in me. If I were to ask them to humour me, then it becomes me pressuring them into something they don't want to do = they don't want to know me. I am uninteresting. Worse, I am annoying. Thousands of shotgun shells to the chest, a third tower struck, mayhem on the frontal lobe front.
Thing is, it's all a bit silly. As the years have gone by I've done my best to really squash these feelings. All of them. All of the feelings I have expressed in this post thus far. They're all stupid. Part of my struggle to feel a belonging or kinship comes from not finding my people yet, part of my struggle is resigning myself to ranting on a slow(er)-paced platform hoping strangers can pick up what I'm putting down, because at least I'm hitting the ground running with my obnoxious writing style so there was never a 'quietly cool' persona to maintain;5 at least if I'm validated here, the messy work of me practically begging for it stays under wraps away from the major networks. Ew. Such a gross way of putting it.
It's an obvious fact that the opinions of strangers shouldn't determine your worth, nor should the visibility of your posts, the subsequent interactions, the silence, and yet feeling left out in school really made me the villain in my own life. If anything, it's dehumanising for you and takes me even further away from my ultimate desire to just be understood and make more lasting connections. My insecurity has made you a number and I'm sorry for that.
With all that said and done, I ask myself: why do I blog now? I'm still a vain person because the immediate answer to that because I like being seen, but I've accepted the more whimsical desire to also 'be found' and, tossing all the whimsy out of the window to just be fucking corny... 'to find myself' (sparkle sparkle) (a rainbow). This blog is where I properly turn my thoughts into a coherent mini-thesis on my character, to figure out what the fuck to do with myself. If I don't get many eyes on me, good, I'm a bit embarrassing. If I'm found, good, I feel like the man-made carving on a tree or the £1 coin beneath your pillow. If I'm discovered by a real-world friend... You've got the wrong person.6
I made this revelation a while ago. I wouldn't be able to pinpoint when exactly but, for the majority of my Bearblog's lifespan, I've had these core tenants in mind. I started back in 2023 and had to fight a lot of the feelings I had towards online acknowledgement equating to real value but over the past year I've really come to enjoy writing my thoughts and organising them into coherent analysis'. Legitimately. I still just think it's because I love to read my own writing (same vein as loving the sound of your own voice) but... Fuck, guess it's a start?
Footnotes
This post was originally going to be an Augustory based on the prompts made by Robert but instead spiralled into something I don't feel comfortable presenting as an entry. Sometime this week, I'll absolutely post a positive history of my blog as well as the indieweb exploration that led to it.↩
I especially enjoyed reading Sylvia's contribution. It was really heartwarming to read all the little interactions that contributed to her interest in blogging as well as her enthusiasm for indieweb manifestos.↩
I really hate recommending things, which is related to the points I make here. After all how can I expect to be "known" if I don't share or express my actual hobbies and interests. However, I feel like this deserves its own blog post one day.↩
It's why I hate job hunting so much, especially in the post-graduate corporate space. I hate the dehumanising process of it all. I have to market myself to these people, actively speak my worth because no one else is going to do it for me. If I have to explain that then did it exist to begin with? Some weird imposter syndrome stuff happening there and not enough logical thinking. You'll see a lot of that in this post.↩
God help my real-world friends or even coworkers who face the whiplash.↩
Lol. Actually let me know.↩