The title is the slightly adapted opening line from 2Chainz’s ‘Birthday Song’. Not a bad song, not a great one, certainly an unforgettable music video. What we do and why we do it is often inextricable from who we do it for. I’m not that kind of scientist, but it seems uncontroversial that as social animals, we do many things that appear intimate and self-facing for social reasons. At least in part. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we are only superficially looking at ourselves. To an extent, we want to see what others see when they look at us. As opposed to a diary, a blog does not have the appearance of being self-facing. It’s an emphatically public medium. So why am I writing? Who am I writing for?

I write for me

Even though this is a public blog, I strive to write for myself first. I am in a near-constant state of reflecting on my (inter-)actions, and thoughts. But mental reflection is very ephemeral and dependent on mood, stress, energy level and so on. Writing about a specific topic can help to distil one version of the truth from the infinite subjective space. Writing for a publicly accessible platform motivates me to cook my thoughts into a coherent and objective-ish form. I want this blog to be a collection of externalised and presentably shaped pieces of my mental landscape; a record of who I was and wanted to be that I can return to. But why do I send my posts to friends if I want to write for myself?

I write for friends

I think this could be twisted as an extension of writing for myself in a public forum. By sharing what I write, it becomes real. Just being on the internet does not make something public, but sharing it does. So if the public nature of the blog is a motivator to write better posts, this might be a necessary step of writing for myself. But it isn’t just that. In my last post about the site’s design, I wrote:

After not really knowing what this page was going to be about, I found out that the writing is really what gives me joy. I’m the guy in the group chat who is responsible for 90 % of the text. I need an outlet so I can send my friends a single link instead of forcing them to mute notifications. My personal space is a space where I can collect words, thoughts and feelings[…].

And I think that this is at least equally true as wanting to write for myself. Writing for myself is an idealistic goal, writing to be read by others is currently an undeniable mark of imperfection on that ideal. I don’t know why I hate the idea of writing for others so much. I want to be seen as I am. I want my friends and family to be able to engage with these posts and hear what they think. But somehow that feels like posting on Instagram for likes; like vanity, seven-deadly-sins adjacent. It’s probably fine to post on Instagram for likes, it’s probably fine to write blog posts and want your friends to read them. But it feels ‘impure’.

I write for everyone

In theory, I really like the idea of complete strangers somehow stumbling across this blog and reading the posts. Maybe even enjoying them. Without ever consciously deciding to, I think that I write in a tone that is aimed at a general audience that does not know me personally. That might be in part driven by imitating other bloggers automatically, but I think there was a certain ‘message in a bottle’ quality that drove the posts on this page from the start. Writing a blog about nothing in particular is not like looking into a mirror. It’s like sending golden records into space. You might think deeply about yourself to create the record that describes you, but you write and send it for aliens to acknowledge your existence and check your vibe. I highly recommend reading Liu Cixin’s ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ trilogy. I don’t want to spoil too much, but sending such a record might not be a great idea, even though it seems to be a deeply human need.

I write for no one

If I really wanted to write for myself, I should write an actual diary or post completely anonymously. If I really wanted to write for likes, I should post on social media, not Neocities. And if I really wanted to reach a broader audience (and aliens), I would probably share this blog on reddit or put up QR-codes in pub toilets or beam the URL into the sun. But I really don’t want to do any of those things. Maybe I’m just writing to create more of the Internet I want to see. I would love for Instagram and Reddit to go away and live in a world where everyone just posts whatever they feel like on a website that you may or may not find. That’s not a realistic future, but I’m LARPing indie web, and I’m loving it!

So, don’t ask me what I do and who I do it for. Or how I come up with this shit up in the studio. And when I die, please do not bury me inside the Gucci store.