A blogging festival! I'm in for Blaugust 2023

The messy smelly death of social media is causing a few meaningful losses — most notably damage to or destruction of some online communities that really were valuable. There are some things to lament. Black Twitter, for example, was and is a vibrant and important community. In the Fediverse (aka Mastodon, which is just one part of the Fediverse, but whatever) where I have been camping for several months, I'm listening to and boosting voices that discourage the careless judgment and disparagement of people who want or need to stay with communities in the corrupt plutocrat's broken toy.

But I think the world will be much, much better off without social media as we know it, and much better off without anything that is controlled by uberwealthy unreflective talentless techbros. We'll be better off not just because we'll be free of the immense toxicity created by these rapacious dipshits. We'll also have the chance to create — and recreate — ways of conversing and creating and sharing online. Like... blogging!

Today (almost too late) I learned about Blaugust 2023, a delightfully outfitted and long-running (since 2013!) blogging festival, the major goal of which is to motivate people to create. There's a Blaugchievement list, an extensive prompt list, a Discord server, a dedicated Mastodon account, and a directory. I just signed up for everything! I suggest starting at the media kit.

The basic goal is to post 31 times in August. I'm already at two! I have some topics lined up but I'll dip into the prompt list as needed, and point to interesting work by other participants. See you tomorrow.