[s2w4] my website now has doomscroll
bencuan.me enters the modern age
Pretty much every social platform today has some sort of infinitely scrollable front page.
Whether it be Instagram's Feed, Twitter's "for you", Reddit's r/all, or the entirety of TikTok, each site is deeply integrated with The Algorithm™️.
The Algorithm™ is capitalized because its sole purpose is to print its makers as much money as mechanistically possible. As a neat side effect, this means its primary goal is to keep you scrolling for as long as possible, since every minute means another ad you could potentially set your eyeballs on!
While this clearly has a lot of frequently-discussed consequences, it's not universally a bad thing. The Algorithm™ is fantastic at surfacing content we'd like to see from our friends/favorite creators, and serves as a frictionless way to discover new people/topics/things we wouldn't have otherwise gone out of our way to find.
friends are the best recommendation algorithm
In an effort to be as deliberate as possible with how I spend time on the internet, I avoid The Algorithm™ whenever possible. I don't have a TikTok account, my Instagram is solely used for DM's, and I zapped Twitter's homepage with uBlock such that it always redirects to the 'Following' feed.
But this is clearly an unpopular choice. Most of my friends like to send me highlights from their feeds on occasion. I very much enjoy this and thank you all for your service 🫡 you make my day a little bit better every time!
In a sense, your recommendations are my replacement for The Algorithm™. My friends know exactly what I'd enjoy viewing; I get most of the discovery benefits without any of the time-sink downsides.
Unfortunately, since I don't scroll with y'all, all I have to give in return is this lousy newsletter. until now!!
introducing: the bencuan.me doomscroller!
The Doomscroller will eventually have all of my updates in one convenient, infinitely-spam-refreshable location on the frontpage of bencuan.me. This includes:
Weekly posts from this newsletter!
Long-form blog updates on bencuan.me/blog
Automated feeds from Bluesky and status.cafe
Webmentions from other federated sites
At the time of writing, it's 3am and I need another hour or two to get that working. So until next-week-me gets around to it, I've pre-loaded it with links to my favorite content from all over the internet. This includes:
my frequent listens on spotify
some fun youtube videos/channels
blog posts I've been thinking about
cool personal websites I've stumbled across
I'll update my recommendation list every now and then; there's still a lot more stuff I want to put in there. (and, if you send me more, it might get even longer!)
Right now, it’s very much under construction— it looks kinda boring at the moment, and doesn’t have that much content diversity yet. Will be back for some more updates soon…
happy scrolling :)
weekly reviews!
I hope to be more intentional with the things I consume this year. As a part of that, I'd like to share some words about some of my favorite new discoveries of the week!
If you so desire, you may stalk my listens on Rate Your Music, digital reads on Sublime, and physical reads on my bookshelf page.
🎵 album review: Jamie xx - In Waves
My British producer listening streak continues this week with Jamie xx's second album, coming after a nearly 10-year wait.
His first album, In Colour, remains at the top of my favorites list, boasting laid back, thoughtful, memorable themes.
Like its cover art suggests, In Waves feels much less colorful, trading variety for polish. It delivers the solidly consistent, distinctly British house beats Jamie is so well known for-- no more and no less.
It's a solid album, and one worth a listen- but one I ultimately find forgettable in the wake of In Colour.
Rating: 5/10
Favorite tracks: Baddy on the Floor, Dafodil
✍ blog review: a tweet thread by Henrik Karlsson
Not really a blog, but blog-related nonetheless:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1881287554999460250.html
I talked to a friend who wants to start a blog and wanted some advice on that—how to find her voice and so on. A few random thoughts [...]
Henrik is a fantastic writer. None of his points in this list are particularly surprising to me, but seeing all of this advice together in one place rather than scattered in vague "oh, I must have heard that somewhere at some point" corners of my brain feels powerfully validating.
A common theme that I resonate with a lot here is the idea that you can't force good writing; you have to let it pass through yourself like a complex set of emotions. Whenever I try to transcribe an exact thought I've been honing for weeks, I almost always throw it away in favor of something new I came up with on a whim in five minutes.
3. Here is a classic pattern: you try really hard to do something GOOD, then you fail, or you make something silly. And it is the failures that people love, or the thing that was just a silly thing.
If I were to choose Henrik's most salient piece of advice:
Most of all: the point is to aim for writing that enhances your feeling of aliveness, that lets you refine your thoughts about what matters, lets you experience with more nuance what you care about, lets you enrichen the texture of your mind.