Geez. Life comes at you fast. You send out an issue of your email newsletter, get busy with some other tasks for a few days, and then Hells' Bells! Elon Musk just ups and buys Twitter.
🤪
Needless to say, it came as quite a shock to me. I didn't actually think he'd go through with something as bananas as that. I've never been an Elon hater. I do admire much of what his efforts have accomplished both at Tesla and at SpaceX. However, he's not someone you want running a social media company. He is—to put it quite frankly—a perfect example of why social media has trended towards becoming nothing more than a toxic cesspool, overrun by provocateurs and trolls.
As I wrote on the blog, I’m done putting serious effort into creating content for walled gardens. Everything, and I mean everything I publish from here on out will start on my own properties and then get syndicated elsewhere. Even if the deal falls through and Elon doesn't end up with control of Twitter, I'm not going through this madness again.
Unfortunately, it's not just about Twitter itself. I've been using Revue to send out these newsletters for the past eleven issues. But guess what? Revue is owned by Twitter. 😬
So I've switched platforms and am now using ConvertKit. They seem to be a company with some actual values who care about creators, and I've enjoyed using their software for another newsletter I run. Plus ConvertKit provides an API which now allows me to download the content of each newsletter and add it to my own website. (See this very issue on the web here!)
To you, dear reader, things should seem more or less the same. That's by design. I was quite happy with how things looked on Revue (clean and minimalist), and I'm pleased I can keep the same aesthetic here.
So here's to a brand new chapter for Creator Class, my website, and to our relationship with social media. I appreciate your readership!
–Jared
From the Blog: A Legacy of Words (link)
Alongside the “Great Resignation” of 2021-2022, we are witnessing the “Great Recognition” of the simple fact that the #openweb is the only digital space where you can leave a true legacy as a thinker and a writer.
Walled gardens like #Facebook, #Twitter, Medium, and many others have tried to capture words over the decades. They failed. 100 years from now, when people look back in time to witness What People Thought, they won’t be gleaning the highest wisdom and deepest insights from tweets and likes and shares.
It will be Articles. Essays. In other words, Blog Posts. (Before you say “what about Newspaper Columns?”—in this day and age they might as well just be considered Blog Posts because we typically consume them the exact same way.)
Medium-to-longform content, written by individuals, and largely posted on independent websites for all the world to see. Not trapped inside a social network, but freely accessible*. I’ve never been more bullish on the power of the #openweb to both contain and promote forward thinking than I am today.
* Rest assured I’m not making a case here against paywalls—even paywalled #writing can be “freely accessible” on the open web in the sense that you don’t need to join a Big Tech platform to make #payments in order to access the content.
Photography Corner
A Moment of Sunlight at Portland Japanese Garden
Tips on How to Write a Good Blog Post
As promised in the last issue, I was going to spend time preparing for some meaty content on this topic, but…well…you know. However, I think what I'll do is make this an ongoing segment for a little while. Spend a few weeks marinating in it.
So here's my first tip on how to write a good blog post:
Your blog post is a story.
And like all good stories, you need to think of your post in stages. Acts.
First, you set up some ground rules. The "world" of your tale. Maybe you need a grand opening statement. Or you need to set the tone for what's coming. Or you need to establish an enemy, an ideology or trauma which must be vanquished.
Then you take the reader through a whirlwind journey. You toy with ideas, plumb their depths. Get the reader invested in what you have to say. Lay out the path for progress and change.
Finally, you reel them in. It's a summation of everything that's happened. Some kind of breakthrough. Perhaps a new perspective. Slowly, the reader starts to nod their head. They get you.
The End. (until next time)
What's your story?
(Pssst…I just used that technique on you. 😆 See what I did there?)
