Why I still use RSS

Marc wrote about why he still uses RSS:

I've already spoken before about my general disinterest with Social Media but it wasn't until somewhat recently that I decided to really start looking for alternatives - searching for a better way to interact with the Internet. I found my answer in RSS. I enjoyed the freedom to see sources as I wanted, the flexibility to move to a new reader if I wanted, the complete lack of advertising. It was hard to not fall in love with the service.

However it wasn't until I began working from home and everything in my life moved online that I really began to notice how beneficial RSS could be with relation to Digital Wellbeing. By selecting only the sites, blogs, creators etc. that I had a serious interest in, I could effectively remove the negative effects of social media and excessive online usage from my life.

On a completely separate tangent here: Marc doesn't share his last name or anything and whenever I see that on the web I'm always impressed. There's an alt-timeline Robin who never shared his name on the web and writes outrageous things about the thoughts in his head via a cool pseudonym like Infinite Mess or something I don’t know I haven’t had coffee yet.

Anyway, this reminds me of two things.

First: a while back I tried to learn more about Kicks Condor and couldn't find anything about whoever makes that site. And it feels so punk rock to me, not having to be known and putting a distance between you and the reader. It feels so very 20th-century-novelist to me.

And some writers are extremely good at that Sexy Mystery Distance but I think I’m always going to be the opposite end of that spectrum. Blogging is the opposite of all that mystery, in a way.

Second: this reminds me of Coates’s piece about Kanye and Michael Jackson:

...[Kanye] is a god, though one born of a different time and a different need. Jackson rose in the last days of enigma and wonder; West, in an accessible age, when every fuck is a tweet and every defecation a status update. And perhaps, in that way, West has done something more remarkable, more amazing than Jackson, because he is a man of no mystery, overexposed, who holds the world’s attention through simply the consistent, amazing, near-peerless quality of his work.