Why I am blogging to ​an audience of zero

The majority of people who stumble upon this website will not find it ​organically, they will most likely be friends, family members, lovers (hi ​Luke, I love you). In fact, I have purposefully denied SEO (search engine ​optimization) capabilities for the first iteration of this publication. If one ​was to take a look under the bonnet of this website they might even see ​how much I have inconvenienced myself to make this website a reality, ​but why, and why to no one.


At the end of the day, we all have something to say. Be it the pillow talk ​you have with your partner, making small talk with strangers, or even ​consoling a friend. We constantly seek opportunities to express our ​thoughts, it’s something wired into us as social animals, for we only ​develop as people through exchanges of ideas. Aptly named ‘Social ​Media’ has capitalized on our biologies and given us opportunities to ​publish our musings on an unprecedented scale for the average man. ​Scholars, politicians, and the elite have always held this platform but ​now, for better or for worse, we hold it as well.


Is it bad if I say that this has led to the death of well-formed thought and ​logical discourse? There is no immediate consequence if I were to replace ​this publication with a rage-inducing tirade that holds little logical ​coherency or historical fact. Traditionally, those that held platforms of ​public discourse were subject to editorial scrutiny and peer-review, but ​the ubiquitous ‘post’ button has all but replaced this sentinel with an ​open gate for all to enter. I am by no means against the democratization ​of knowledge, nor do I wish for discourse to be taken out of the hands of ​everyday people, but I do warn of the consequences of increasing ​technologies paired with poor education.


While there are no immediate consequences if I turned Danny’s Desk into ​a page of hatred and vitriol, it doesn’t mean there are no consequences ​at all. Anyone could stumble upon here and take what I utter to be the ​truth, go on to spread it, or even become radicalized by it, hidden ​consequences with unimaginable impacts. The brunt of it is that online ​discourse is now knee deep in the near infinite snowball effects that have ​been created and continue to be created every single day as posts ​continuously force their way onto our screens.


As society becomes more polarized, the gatekeeper in all of this is no ​longer a neutral figure that encourages everyone to contribute but is ​now an entity of self-interest. I have had the misfortune of creating new ​accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and seen how algorithms ​that were once tailored toward generic cute cat videos for new users now ​flood new users’ feeds with endless rage-inducing content. Discourse on ​these websites is tainted by a group of malicious individuals keen to ​exploit our cognition and emotion in order to create discord. The result ​of which is a platform that seldom values truth, and whose users struggle ​to critically analyse their (and others’) statements.


I hope to delve deeper into the sheer magnitude of online indoctrination ​(in all its forms, both harmful and non-harmful) in a later iteration. ​What I wish to touch on in this article is that there is no shame in writing ​to an audience of zero, because the world has shifted in such a way that ​we must proactively write as if we were speaking directly to every human ​on the planet. Character limits and zealous content moderation have ​made it all the more important that we have the space to flesh out our ​thoughts fully, that we are able to fully commit to our ideas by critically ​analysing them in the face of all the facts.


If the consequence of my fleshed out thoughts is that I speak to an ​audience of zero, then so be it. The benefits of an untainted space where ​I am free to muse without external interference outweigh the slimy ​substitute that social media purports itself to be. The agents that ensure ​you remain emotionally addicted to their content are incredibly good at ​their job, the only solution is complete disconnection.