Red Line
Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl by Broken Social Scene
Updated my home page / intro page. Previously it used to say:
I write some [very] personal stuff on here. Why? Because I always wanted to be a musician and write songs about how I feel. I never ended up being that good at that, so a blog will have to suffice. I have no problem if you read this, but I would really like it if you don’t tell me you read my blog. Sharing secrets with strangers is fun. Sharing them with people? A nightmare… This applies to just the personal stuff of course. Go to town on the technical stuff.
It was way overdue for an update for oh so many reasons. Let's hit it up line by line and tear that down, because misinformation is better than no information.
Because I always wanted to be a musician and write songs about how I feel.
Still true, still will always be true.
I never ended up being that good at that
Never true, and getting less true every day. Self-deprecation is great and often has its time and place, but on my homepage? Not so much. Also, never is such a strong word. It only takes seven years to master something, and I think I'll have this song-writing down in another year.
so a blog will have to suffice.
It did so much more than suffice. It filled in a gap I didn't know I had. This weird little corner of the internet means a lot to me.
I have no problem if you read this, but I would really like it if you don’t tell me you read my blog.
Wrong and wrong again. I had many problems with being reading my blog! That's why I asked people not to share it, duh. How I wrote the above with a straight face, I'll never know. I was writing incredibly personal things and anyone on the internet could find it with a trivial Google search. Having a unique name is both awesome and awful in that regard. I don't need to defend that point either - diaries are private for a reason.
Sharing secrets with strangers is fun. Sharing them with people? A nightmare…
At the same time, I realized the topics I was blogging about were things I really did want to talk about. I just struggled to say that, especially out loud. I love TheInternet that I grew up on. It was that awkward transition from everyone has their own strange little webpage with their notes and family pictures to social media. No one really knew how to use social media and what the rules were, so everyone was just… honest? Sure, part of this was the fact that we were also in middle school and didn't really have “adult ideas” of privacy. I still love finding examples of TheInternet where I used to live. I wish everything was like that still. Furthermore, I've realized that if you want something, maybe you should try helping out. This is my little modicum of effort.
Why now? I'm not sure. I've started sharing some of my posts to social media, so any pretense that people aren't aware of it is out the window. A friend asked me why my website said what it said and I couldn't answer… well, something clearly wasn't right. I'm not saying you should talk to me about everything I write here, nor am I saying I always want to discuss everything I write here. It is significantly more than zero percent of the time however, so I felt an update was necessary. This change is not entirely self-motivated: it takes two to tango after all. So dear reader, thanks for dancing with me.
Last but not least, we're cutting one last bit of info. My website has maintained a Google Analytics tracker for awhile. It's been slightly cool and slightly more narcissistic to keep looking at these numbers over time. I've come to realize that these numbers aren't good for a few reasons.
- Google doesn't need the info on whoever clicks here. They can get it in a multitude of other ways, but this one is not going to be one of them.
- Reduces the webpage size, so everything feels faster and smoother. I'm not good at webdev or anything, but I hate slow pages, so let's make things better.
I've attached some plots of the “audience view” over time. Kind of neat to look at, but nothing I'm really going to miss. Of course, the peak is on one of the worst posts I've ever made, so glad to know that the high-water mark will remain there. Past year or so:
All time (probably want to open in a new tab):
