Some things I write would be better left unread, buried at the bottom of a drawer, thrown into the sea, and then blown up by an naval mine. This is one of them. If you’re really interested in my thoughts about where Dirty Feed might be going over the next year or so, by all means grab a cup of tea and settle down.
If you’re not, then don’t worry: something fun about The Young Ones will be along before you know it.1
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It’s odd how you can feel a kinship with someone online, despite never having talked to them. Andy Baio, and his website Waxy.org is definitely one person I seem to have a lot in common with. To see the similarity between us, just check out this post, about an early meme: “In the spirit of investigating things nobody cares about but me…” That’s pretty much a mission statement for Dirty Feed.
Recently, the site celebrated 20 years of publication. And along with a list of Andy’s favourite posts over the last few years, he also offers the following explanation for why the site is updated less these days:
“There are some pretty obvious reasons why my posting slowed since 2012:
- XOXO started that year, which became a big creative outlet for me, as well as a big time sink.
- My long-form writing shifted elsewhere, with my column in WIRED and as a member of The Message publication on Medium, while short-form writing continued to land on Twitter.
- I became more focused on quality than quantity, with a higher bar for what made it here.
- I was less motivated to invest time in writing, in part because fewer people were reading.
I still enjoy writing though, and have no intention of stopping any time soon.”
It got me pondering as to why I still write so much here on Dirty Feed. My rate of writing hasn’t slowed; it’s increased over the years. Last year I wrote by far the most I’ve ever written on here: almost as much as 2019 and 2020 combined. I was rewarded with twice the amount of traffic in 2021 than in 2020, and four times the amount of traffic as 2019.
I’d love to say all this was because I wanted to make some nice things for people during a global pandemic. This is partly true: it just felt like the right thing to do. But part of it is purely personal and selfish. In a world where I feel I have less control over my life than I’d like, Dirty Feed is a place that’s just for me. It’s where I don’t have to satisfy anybody but myself, and I can write what the hell I like.
By writing here, I grab a little part of my life back.
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The other day, a full-time blogger I’ve followed for years, Jason Kottke, announced something rather surprising. After 24 years, here’s taking a sabbatical from his blog. Not just for a couple of weeks, either. For six months.
“I’m burrrrned out. I have been for a few years now. I’ve been trying to power through it, but if you’ve read anything about burnout, you know that approach doesn’t work.”
And bloody hell, do I know what that feels like. The pandemic especially has left me tired. So, so tired.
Now, at the risk of being overly-defensive, I’m always at pains to say that I know the pandemic was bad for all of us. There are plenty who had it worse than me, and I don’t want to pretend that I’m some kind of amazing special case. Still, having to go out to work through the whole pandemic was tough; due to the nature of my job, it was impossible for me to work from home, and furlough absolutely wasn’t a thing. I still distinctly remember travelling into work during the early stages of the pandemic, and having absolutely no idea what kind of danger I was putting myself in. In fact, I gave serious thought to resigning. (The fact I still had to live and eat soon disabused me of that notion.)
Even after I was vaccinated and things felt a little safer, I was still travelling into work for every shift – including night shifts, which are their own special kind of unpleasantness, especially once you hit 40. Let’s face it: some people managed to take their foot off the gas for a while during the pandemic, and some didn’t. I know this wasn’t split purely down whether you could work from home or not, and those who lost their jobs during the pandemic had it worse than I did. But the point is: some people managed to find a bit of time to rest, recover, and figure out their lives… and some didn’t. Put me in the “didn’t” category.
Jason Kottke is lucky that he has the ability to take six months out and sort out what to do next. I genuinely, honestly don’t begrudge him for it. But some people have the wherewithal to do that, and some people don’t. I feel sorry for those who don’t. So yeah: I feel sorry for myself.
I don’t know what the solution is. But as a society, we need to get better at figuring out how to give people a proper break, and being able to support them while they do it. And that break needs to be longer than a couple of weeks’ holiday, which is all most of us can manage.
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There’s a particular paragraph in Jason Kottke’s goodbye post which really resonates with me. I feel it’s worth quoting in full:
“Does what I do here make a difference in other people’s lives? In my life? Is this still scratching the creative itch that it used to? And if not, what needs to change? Where does kottke.org end and Jason begin? Who am I without my work? Is the validation I get from the site healthy? Is having to be active on social media healthy? Is having to read the horrible news every day healthy? What else could I be doing here? What could I be doing somewhere else? What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs? I’ve tried thinking about these and many other questions while continuing my work here, but I haven’t made much progress; I need time away to gain perspective.”
These are things I ponder about with Dirty Feed all the time. Especially the parts about being so active so much on social media, and the worries about validation. Hanging around on Twitter so much doesn’t feel good for the soul… but is also how I found something absolutely vital for an upcoming article. Squaring the circle here is tricky, and perhaps impossible.
Then there are the thoughts I touched on at the beginning of this piece. When does Dirty Feed stop being a positive thing which helps me gain some control of my life, and start becoming a second, unpaid job? And what is the solution to that? Is the answer to pull away from the site a little, and concentrate on doing fewer, better articles? Or is the answer to try and make a Patreon work, so I can justify putting more of my time into the site? Either could be the correct way to go, but the status quo is probably untenable.
I also worry about whether I’m even making the right kind of things on here. Over the last couple of years, my writing has leaned more and more into needing videos to support the words. My Thin Blue Line articles last year, for instance, required a fair few comparison videos for the different edits, to show things which were difficult or impossible to describe in text. At what point does my work here stop being sensible to continue in its current form, and would be better off as a pure video format instead?
The true answer to that one is: I don’t want to make videos. And I know a lot of my established audience don’t want me to make videos either. But there is a real argument that a lot of my work now might suit a video format better – and that is distinct from “pivot to video for no reason”. Besides, there’s definitely an argument that I could reach far more people than I do now with my articles. What’s the answer here? Is it worth doing something which I would find less enjoyable, in order to find a wider audience? Indeed, would I even find it less enjoyable, or would I just get used to it?
In short: I don’t really know what I’m doing, and I’m tired. Can I go to sleep now, please?
Seriously. An off-air of something from 1984 which has been lost for years popped through my letterbox the other day. ↩