In Defense of Anagorism

political economy in the non-market, non-state sector

Preferentially use noncommercial or DIY media

Written by

Lorraine Lee

in

This post was originally a comment to /u/DarSakhar’s Reddit post, If, for some unknown reason, this subreddit disappeared completely one day, how would you connect with other AnComs?

In general, choose DIY platforms over commercial platforms. Choose blogging over social media, and if possible self-host a blog (or other type of web site) rather than go with a blog-platform-in-a-can like Blogger or WordPress-dot-com.

Admittedly, I still use commercial social media, as evidenced by the present comment. There are some audiences that I’ll never, ever reach except through social media. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend muting your voice just to say you’re boycotting social media. But one practice I have adopted is, if I notice that I’ve put a fair amount of effort into a post or comment on social media, I immediately copypaste it into my now-self-hosted blog. I want the public domain to have my best work.

Comments

4 responses to “Preferentially use noncommercial or DIY media”

  1. edisondotme Avatar
    edisondotme

    This is a good idea. What about preserving the content at the other end of the link? Should you self host an archive of that as well?

    Reply
    1. Lorraine Lee Avatar
      Lorraine Lee

      Ideally, yes, although it’s not currently a priority of mine. I’m working against two trends here. One is the huge trend of decline in blogging accompanied by the rise of social media. The other is the more recent groundswell of a FYPM (fuck you, pay me) ethos, where everybody be monetizing. The upside is that more people are seeing the value in owning their own content, and ideally also, their own domain, platform, etc. The dark side, of course, is that it’s a step even further away from the largely noncommercial Internet I remember so fondly, and is why the word “noncommercial” is in the very title of the present post. Certainly you can’t not have noticed that there are a number of people who have obviously adopted a strict editorial policy of using their social media accounts (or blogs, for that matter) only to post links to content they’ve posted in monetized venues. I vomit just a little every time I see one, although I certainly sympathize with the girl gotta make money sentiment. Monetization is a question for which there are no good answers, and I’ve become convinced that even the theoretical possibility of a good answer does not exist

      Reply
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    astoundingteam.com

    This Article was mentioned on astoundingteam.com

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    astoundingteam.com

    This Article was mentioned on astoundingteam.com

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