In the past, I felt pressured to adhere to specific rules of blogging to grow my audience and build a passive income — but 2026 ends that inauthentic garbage. Yes, you read that correctly: INAUTHENTIC! I’m calling out anyone who has EVER typed the word authentic as if they were using it appropriately. That word was thrown around during the 2010s so frequently that it lost all meaning. If this offends you, I refuse to apologize. The dictionary definition indicates to me that a truly authentic individual shouldn’t need to use that word in every other sentence to prove to their audience that they embody the term — that’s bull shit.
Do you know what else feels forced and disingenious? Those themed days! I felt so confined to the “M” Mondays, “T” Tuesdays, and blah blah freaking blah! (Am I a bit more informal today? Perhaps I am!) I suspect my long absence was due to the forced nature of adhering to some arbitrary writing schedule and feeling confined to specific themes that didn’t truly fit my ideas. I have ideas, obviously — but what if I don’t have a song to write about every single Monday? What if I don’t find the perfect photo opportunity for every Wednesday? What if my gratitude practice feels more private and less open to the “Thankful Thursday” theme? And “Foodie Friday”? Hah! The pressure to have a perfect kitchen, perfect photos, and some fancy freaking recipe? No. Back. Off. Take your hustle culture and… well, clearly, I’m feeling some kind of way right now.
So, no more hashtags (they don’t work here), no more attempts at monetization (except I’ll have my Buy-Me-A-Coffee link instead of some affiliate link from now on), and no more attempts to impress some audience that isn’t here (and whatever audience I attract will be the target audience anyway). I’m not a “show pony” or some pageant girl trying to compete with everyone else for some random title. I’m just a writer who wants to release her words and create something. What happened to art for art’s sake? I may teach students to look for meaning within literature and rhetoric, but I also remind them to appreciate written art for its beauty, too.
For any human beings who happen upon this post, I appreciate you! Thank you for being here and reading my words! For now, I continue screaming into the void like an opossum in the night, wondering how many bots and spiders are scraping materials to train artificial intelligence….
Be First to Comment