thoughts about things

I just had someone unfollow me today over at mac sac and crack .com. Someone I didn’t know, and I wasn’t following them.

I don’t hesitate to unfollow people when their content ceases to be of interest to me - it’s a cruel world - but maybe next time I unfollow someone I’ll send a thank-you card or something. “Thanks for the mamories”.

I wonder how long she’d been contemplating unfollowing me? Was it a drawn out decision or a distracted click of the mouse and…oops! Gone. What was the final nail in the coffin?

My last post she saw was either this handy tumblr tip or this beautiful picture, both things I reblogged - which makes me sad; does she not like what I would consider to be a beautiful picture? Does she prefer ugly scenery and images of smashed up cars? Was the tip a little too techy and hence, uninteresting?

Maybe it’s because I deviated from the toilet humour and sexual jokes. Damn it! That must be it…I get a little serious…and she jumps ship. More poo jokes it is, I guess! I thought I overdid it already…but the crowd of one hath spoke-ed.

But overall, I feel happy and relieved for her. Perhaps she feels she has been released of a burden. She has simplied her life and increased the concentration of goodness that appears on her Dashboard. A moment of purification has taken place.

Well whatever the reason - I’m sure not trying to (nor will I in the near future) taylor the content of macsacandcrack.com to any specific ‘crowd’ or ‘type’ or anything. Nor am I trying to keep what I post consistent to any theme or genre, etc… What you see there is what I like and what I enjoy creating; be it entertainment suitable for a four-year-old or an online diary entry about life. And this, I find rather interesting…

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Typically one might keep a blog specific to one area of interest, or write it in a consistent voice or character. For me, I haven’t ‘constrained’ macsacandcrack.com to either of those things.

I guess part of the main reason (and a great cliché) is that I just wanted a place online to be me. And it turns out on that tumblelog, I am all parts of me. The ‘funny’, the silly, the serious, the lover, the mother (well not really…not yet anyway), the creative guy, the thinker.

I don’t mind things being like that, because I’m not trying to create a ‘consistant brand experience’ or anything, ‘cause this blog is first and foremost, something for me. If people happen to stop by and watch a bit, then I’m only happy to offer them a hot cup of somethin’ somethin’ - or coffee - whatever’s their vice. I’ll even offer a comfy chair, if you get tired from standing.

The whole ‘follow’ thing with tumblr makes ‘blogging’ a lot more interesting; I mean more than half of the content I post at macsacandcrack.com is stuff I’ve reblogged. Stuff I gather I wouldn’t have necessarily come across, had I been using a Wordpress installation (for example) as my blogging platform.

I know some people use tumblr purely as a short form blog, and have a Wordpress installation for longer-form thoughts or ‘articles’, but given I don’t have many elongated thoughts - I’ve never bothered. I’ve been happy to create a post right here, as tall as your Dashboard. :P

I certainly agree that tumblr is more suited to the short form ‘bang it up on the net’ type thing - a brief collection of text, quotes, music, pictures and video…but I guess - just like the ‘utility hole’ of a chicken - I can’t be bothered peeing and pooing from two seperate holes; the convenience of the one for both long and short form thoughts and pieces of the Internet is too comfortable.

But, as this post gets longer and longer and longer…I’m starting to have doubts and see the logic of doing what, say, Melody McCloskey does: short-form, long-form (with room for discussion). Ha! Look what I accidentally found! Nice one Mel! :P That was my ‘jolly lol’ for the day!

To give a counter example though, let’s look at jasondoesdallas.com.

Jason strikes a great balance between the visual and text, with quotes interspersed throughout.

I think what also helps his tumblelog a lot - visually - is that it is lacking all the tell-tale signs of a typical community tumblr user; notice there aren’t a tonne of…

(via thisperson; thatperson; yourmum; mydad; eatapplestheyregoodforyou)

Full sick!!!1

Ha ha just lol-ed my pants!

I just commented on this video!

Me too!

Doodles are funny.

You’re right. Your doodle is funny.

I don’t point this out (about the tumblr baggage) to take a stab at it, as 1) crediting is very important, and 2) sharing thoughts with the community is part of what tumblr is. If I were to guess what Jason might say about this, it would be that there are ways to at least retain #1 in a minimal, more subtle way. And just delete the parts of #2 that aren’t of interest to you. :) But I wouldn’t want to put words in his mouth. Just my freshly cooked pasta. Parmesan cheese, Jason?

I would make the lay observation then, that different people use tumblr in different ways, and in different degrees.

The really social tumblr users have entire conversations back-and-forth by reblogging and adding their next two-cents-worth to the conversation and posting that. I guess these people really aren’t using tumblr to create a public facing blog of sorts, to deciminate information or ‘create a brand’ of a consistent feel and style, as I believe Jason has been doing so for the past six months (and successfully so, I might say old chappy).

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Well this has really just been a total stream of conscience. I don’t know that I’m any closer to deciding whether I’ll break out such infrequent lengthy posts to a seperate site of some description, or not…My typical mode with these things (ie. making more work for myself) is by default, that of laziness.

I guess if I were to create a long-form area for these posts, then I’d be slightly caring about the utility of this blog, going against what I said near the start of this ramble. Hmm…thoughts to be had.

If you have any thoughts you’d like to share on all this, why not inconvenience yourself by sending an emailaroo to mac sac and crack at g mail dot com.

Please include a self-addressed envelope and stamp if you wish for your email to be returned after reading.

UPDATE: Well it turns out I did decide to break out a new blog for my long-form thoughts…I guess because I had more than one of them…or something.

I’ve gone back through this post and adjusted it to make a little more sense, given this post now resides away from macsacandcrack.com, so hopefully it’s not too confusing.

Here’s to the long-form! And with discussions and stuff…