On the spaces we inhabit…
I’ve been thinking lately about the spaces we inhabit.
Rooms we share with loved ones.
Alcoves where we escape.
Cozy corners that hold our secrets, hopes, and dreams.
Our online spaces feel the same sometimes. Some private, some curated, some wildly overflowing with clutter and noise and the constant thrum of pressure. Some will decry social media as the source of much evil, and others will reassure us of its beauty, all of us forgetting the algorithms on each of these sites exists primarily to monetize your curiosity, and little else.
As writers attempting to use online spaces we have had to become adaptable and flexible. Blogs started as ways to keep in touch with families and, for some, expanded into these broader platforms for ideas. Not too long into blogging, though, we were warned to shorten our posts. The attention span of our audiences was dwindling. To keep a reader’s focus, use no more than 600 words. Next, we were urged to bold and italicize. For the skimmers, mostly. Get the salient points in front of them. Make sure they see.
Facebook changed the landscape of blogs and Instagram more so, to the point where writing a caption on Instagram became known as ‘micro blogging’ – trying to keep the attention of readers. Excellent photos were important, and could draw a ‘like’ even if no one read the words. Snapchat forced Instagram to develop stories; TikTok forced reels. Arbitrary growth and overnight viral videos became the new metrics for success in a constantly adapting world. The beautiful photos we once strived for are now just words (10 slides at a time), and the words we strove to weave into captions are now a swipe (or 9) away.
And so, I’ve been thinking about spaces.
Mostly, though, I’ve been praying about community. What does it look like online? What do we want from our online spaces? We visit them often, to be sure, and we use them as we need to.
I snapped a photo of our living room recently, and I was surprised how I pored over it afterwards. For a moment I worried it looked cluttered, but I realized quickly it was all meaningful and intentional. The small cabinet from the 1800s I rescued from Kijiji, an overzealous paintbrush, and chalk paint. The plants winding their way along my walls, the sweetest gifts the pandemic gave me. The vintage Coke box holding the dog toys, the red klompen, the tiny Bordallo Pinheiro hen, and the five-set stack of Spurgeon sermons. The peg-doll nod to our love of Lord of the Rings, and the front door and windows swung wide to catch the light and sounds of our beloved neighbourhood.
I want the spaces where I place my words to be as intentional as the four walls where I spend the hours of my life: invitational, open, cozy. It is difficult these days to know how to curate such a space into a lifegiving opportunity for those who want to talk about how grief and joy hold hands. I have no real way of knowing whether my readers want to join me on a blog or receive regular emails, or whether I’m bound to Instagram and Facebook to avoid chattering at an irrelevant internet void.
I have no real way of knowing, and so I’m going to experiment for a few months and see where we end up. I’m going to return to the strange world of blogging and use the socials as a redirect to posts that will live here. I’ll lose some folks, sure. Some won’t bother to click through. Perhaps, after a few months, I’ll regret it and be back on Instagram in full force, making reels and carousel posts and all the newest things the algorithm wants me to do to stay relevant.
But I’d rather have community over relevance, you know? I’d rather we create a space where we can live honestly together and create beauty and meaning on our terms. I’d rather we have the ability to show up in spaces we can trust for consistency and integrity in the wildly shifting space of social media, and the arbitrary whims of a monetizing algorithm.
And hey, it’s not like I hate the socials. I don’t. Many of my favourite people live there. As a writer, though, I think I’m done worshipping at the altar of the algorithm and I want to believe there are still ways of building community outside of the socials. Let’s give it a go, shall we?
