learning in public

published: 2025.01.25
tagged: webmaidery
by mana

so today, I was talking to my good homie lucidiot about the concept of learning in public, something I read about on a blog before I began working on this website, but that wriggled its way into my mind. The original post that I read explaining it is lost to my browser search history (which is way too thicc to go through in any meaningful way).

Basically, what’s been wriggling around in my head as of late is kind of facing this idea at the self-imposed expectation that this website always be “presentable” or “polished-looking.”

Web 2.0 has become so profile and clout-focused in my mind. everyone is very concerned about present a polished, perfect public-facing image of themselves and their lives, and I think that sort of mindset has poisoned my mind with this return to the web of yore…I’ve been so concerned and anxious about what the finished product looks or navigates like that I’ve lost focus of something important about the old web: websites are a constant work-in-progress!

There is a reason that the “under construction” graphics of the late 90’s and early 00’s are so ubiquitous, and it’s because the web used to be for hobbyists & individuals, not large corporations, not for “growing your personal brand” or anything as consumerist as all that. The old web was very much a D.I.Y. space, a constant work-in-progress. Sometimes links were broken, or pages were uploaded in an unfinished state. I kind of miss that raw, handmade vibe that websites used to have, and so I’ve resolved to try and push more updates as they are in-progress instead of waiting for everything to perfect before pushing them…

Today I ended up taking about 2 hours of dear luci’s time for him to teach me about branches in git, and as a result, I will no longer have the excuse of “oh no I’m planning a big restructure but it’s not ready yet and I can’t poosh a blag post this week bc of it.” which makes it sound like I was using it as an excuse now that I think of it

so as a result, I no longer have to panic if I’m in the middle of an unfinished restructure, but even understanding this now, I’d like to try and not limit myself to only publishing the most finished and perfect-looking updates to this site, and instead return a bit to that “workshop” feel that was ever-present in the oldweb.

don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate polish… part of the reason I left behind traditional SNS websites was struggling against the pristine perfect life others were portraying on their instagrams & facebooks, etc. If you’re a small business owner, or using your SNS as some kind of other brand representation (your official streaming twitter, for example), it makes perfect sense for that to have a polished & curated feel to it.

But part of the reason I stayed on tumblr of all websites in my great SNS purging of 2020 is because of that sort of…work-in-progress feel that the site has. I’m not out here running a specific aesthetic blog or anything as fancy as all that…I’m just reblogging stuff that interests me and just kind of throwing things onto my tumblr willy-nilly as they appeal to me; I’m not worrying about keeping to any sort of “theme.” If pressed, I suppose I might say that the theme is “stuff I like or that interests me.”

Which is exactly what this website is supposed to be! And that realization means I have arrived at my first resolution of the new year: to not edit myself so much here, to allow things to be a little less polished and to not stress so much about this website and how it’s presented.

Hobbies are supposed to be fun right?