Earlier this week, Luka asked me a great question as they were working on their inaugural blog post for GraferaZone:

Luka
How do you not worry about being pleasant online?

Setting aside that I think their first blog post is brave and vulnerable and good, being on the Internet is very hard. Our attention is split between more things and more people, so our own Internet existence is often distilled, diluted, or truncated to fit a smaller space for others to consume.
That absolutely influences how we post and how others perceive what we post. On collective websites, like social media, none of us are in control of what might be adjacent to our words or artwork. The context for what we post is what anyone else in the world might be posting. For example, if everyone’s chipper and you’re not, you look like a buzzkill. If everyone’s depressed about one thing and you’re excited about another, you look insensitive.
In contrast, personal websites have the potential to provide additional context about yourself to help others understand who you are. That’s the best part of having a website. It can be a reflection, so others have the opportunity to see you how you see yourself.
So perhaps the answer to Luka’s question is that I mitigate the pressure of always being pleasant online by providing much more about me on my own website. I contextualize my writing with my art, my art with my inspirations. When I talk about bummer things, it’s more clearly just one part of what I’m doing and thinking, because more context is visible.
It’s super cool to see Luka start their personal blog by talking about their struggle about posting, not just because it gives words to what others may also feel, but also because it gives greater context to who they are.

Why I’m Blogging in 2025

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