Approach writing in public as conversation instead of a performance
Whenever we are writing to friends and family to explain, share, or discuss something, we are authentic. The tone of the conversation is natural. We focus on writing personal, clear, and to the point to help them understand rather than impressing them. While doing so, we are comfortable showing personality and imperfection. As a reader of such a messaging and tone, I feel personally addressed and connected. Any kind of complex ideas become more digestible through conversational, fun, and to the point explanations. Additionally, any kind of humorous flavour and personal anecdotes in such messages, make the content increasingly memorable.
But still, so much of todays online writing is the absolute contrary of that. Once people start writing for the public, some of them tend to write in a different kind of style, not as personal, and instead with the force in mind to come up with something great and polished. What is the reason for that? What creates the mind-shift that we go from personal, fun, memorable content, to impersonal, bland, academic-style prose as soon as we publish online?
Let's dig a bit deeper.
Big news outlets heavily rely on the traffic their articles are generating, so they can sell ads and plaster the whole article with them, since that provides a great reading experience, right? Anyway, they write for broad audiences, they need to attract broad audiences, and as a result of that a lot of those news outlets, not all of them, publish highly polished articles, with a formal tone to avoid offending or alienating any segment of their audience. Big news outlets and publications often feel a certain weight of accountability from their readers, advertisers, and shareholders. To deliver on that, they rather stick with a formal, sometimes even monotone and bland tone. And as they write for a broad audience, they tend to convey complex ideas in a way that resonates with everyone rather than taking the risk of being misunderstood or alienating certain segment of their readership. Another factor to consider is that while browsing traditional social networks and using big tech search engines, it is the bland and monotone, attention-grabbing, and inauthentic content that gets prioritized by algorithms over authentic, engaging, meaningful, and personal posts.
One publication that stands out for me and provides this much needed personal and authentic tone when it comes to reporting about how OpenAI suddenly became furious that DeepSeek might have stolen all the data OpenAI stole from us, why hundreds of subreddits are considering banning all links to X, or why Donald Trump has Mark Zuckerberg by the balls, is 404 Media. It is independent media, owned by the journalists, they reach a broad audience because of their authentic style of writing. Or another example: check out Marisa Kabas, who writes The Handbasket, which she launched in June 2022 as a side project, mainly to publish more personal stuff and pieces she knew corporate outlets would never take. And now she is running it full-time covering fomer Congressman George Santos, the police raid on a small Kansas newspaper, or Elon Musk's antisemitism. Her reporting appears in big news outlets like The Daily Beast or The Washington Post. And her readers are supporting her because of her unique and personal perspectives on the topics she is covering.
With the recent evolvements of AI, the internet got suddenly flooded by clickbait headlines or sensationalized summaries (since that seems to be where AI is really good at when it comes to writing) rather than the meaningful and personal posts which get buried deep down in search results. It is no secret that AI garbage is destroying the search results of leading search engines. There is even a team of German researchers who studied search results for thousands of product-review terms and found shocking results, as the search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam. In November 2024, The Byte reported that searching for the name "William Shakespeare" on Google, the guy who often regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, prioritizes a blatantly AI-generated image of the iconic playwright.
Anyway, the fact that AI garbage gets prioritized so much online should not hold us back to continue crafting and writing personal and authentic blog posts and publish them online. Thanks to services like feedle and Minifeed, the discovery of human-written, independent, and personal blog is as easy as ever. Besides that, I discover loads of new blogs to follow, while reading, since one thing all those amazing human-beings who are writing and publishing their personal blogs online do have in common is that they link to like-minded creative folks. And while I do share the excitement when a certain blog post gets loads of traffic and getting read by folks, it is a byproduct of why I am publishing online. I want to share my personal perspectives on certain topics. I am reading personal and independent blogs because I want to read and learn about the personal perspectives of those specific individuals. So, instead of feeling torn between sharing your personal perspectives and remaining objective, neutral sources of information when publishing online, approach it with the same authenticity you have when you write to a friend or your family. When we write for our friends and family, we allow ourselves to be imperfect, funny, and vulnerable – all of those qualities tend to be gone when you aim to write for a broad audience. Therefore, embrace those aspects, as they allow us to create content that feels more relatable, authentic, and memorable.
The fun paradox of all of this is that an authentic, friend-to-friend style often creates more engaging public content, as readers feel personally addressed and connected, complex ideas become way more digestible through conversational explanations, personal anecdotes and humor make the content memorable, and natural language flows better than forced formality.
Ultimately, it is not about writing blog posts that resonate with everyone, the goal should be to connect with readers who matter most to us. We should focus on writing that feels more relatable and authentic. And in a world where AI garbage is increasingly dominating the internet, this is more important than ever.
Till next time! 👋
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