TUMBLR
A scrapbook of stuff I'm reading / looking at / listening to / thinking about...
Posts tagged "michele catalano"
“There are no stats programs here. There is no like button.”
Michele Catalano writes about moving back to her blog hosted at her original domain, not because Yahoo bought Tumblr, but because she wants to get away from the likes/reblogs as validation trap:
For as long as I have wanted to be a writer – and that’s about 40 long years – there was never any part of that dream that included obsessively checking a page of statistics and judging my self worth by the numbers within. I always wrote for the sheer pleasure of it, from putting that first word down to finishing the final edit, writing has always been a labor of love. Recently, it had become just a labor.
So here I am back at my old domain, the one where I started writing publicly (ok, blogging) in 2001, the one where I started telling my stories to the world. I’m taking the majority of my writing away from tumblr, away from the hearts and reblogs, away from the instant validation. I don’t want to labor anymore. I want to love what I write. I want to love why I write.
There are no stats programs here. There is no like button. I will have no idea how many people will read each post. But I will write and I will learn to love to write again.
I was chatting with Michele on Twitter, and she said, “For the first couple of years I blogged I had no idea how many readers I had. And I was better off for it.” It reminded me of Greil Marcus, talking about the early days of Rolling Stone, when they said, “My God, people are actually paying attention to this. Let’s pretend they aren’t.”
Over at Forbes, Michele Catalano writes about liking pop music:
The defenders of pop – myself included – are often put on the defensive, made to offer up excuses as to why we like what we do. No one should have to defend their musical choices. No artist who worked hard to get where they are should be roundly dismissed because their music doesn’t fit some elitist standard. No one should have to feel, like Grimes did, ashamed about what they like, ashamed enough to delete the evidence of their penchant for pop.
She also wrote a piece about “guilty pleasures”:
I don’t like the phrase guilty pleasure. It implies that you should feel guilty, shamed or embarrassed for liking something that brings you joy. No song that gives you pleasure should also give you a sense of guilt. Own what you like, revel in it. If it makes you feel good – and pop hits should make you feel good – don’t let that be a burden to you.
cf: Dave Grohl and Alan Jacobs: “Read at whim! Read what gives you delight—at least most of the time—and do so without shame.”
Filed under: guilty pleasures
