I'm looking for great blogs to follow. Many of the ones that I currently follow (from years ago) are either MIA or quietly voting; no posts.
I've found a few great creators these past few days, but I want to know who you love to read consistently.
Comment, and I'll have a peak.
Thanks loves. 🥰😘
I am grateful you already follow me!
People who I always read, no matter the topic:
@honeydue - Stories, snapshots of life, so eloquent and nice words
@riverflows - So much wisdom and enthusiasm for life
@mobbs - Reflective, clever observations and so much depth about music
I'm really sad you didn't get more replies, I was hoping to follow a few new people too...
Same. I keep coming to see if anyone else replied, nothing.
I can find great creators myself, and have, but I was looking forward to the vetted creators.
Oh well... I'll continue on the longer route.
Scrolling through the "Created" section can be pretty exhausting - there's a lot of content there that on the surface, appears to be decent quality, but when you start to read it, it is either AI slop (carefully disguised) - or in some instances, not even disguised - or content that starts off good, then abruptly ends before it even starts to make a point - sometimes after hundreds of words.
I find that good posts have the classic literary elements, y'know - showing, not telling, who, why where, what, when, and a certain sense of mastery of language.
I know that we have a lot of users on HIVE for which English is a second language (me included... I spoke in cries and wails as a child as my first language, much like everyone else!) - but good structure and pacing in a post is also important to me as well.
I find if I look through the communities of things I enjoy I tend to have better luck, but ... it can be misleading. People aren't one dimensional, and may write about a broad variety of topics and in different styles depending on their moods and the depths of their interests.
For example... I have a post coming up that compares the song writing of Florence and the Machine and the downfall of Ferrari's winning empire in Formula 1. (IN THE SAME POST) I expect it to appeal to no one but myself.
Sorry, I couldn't get past "cries and whails" lollll.
I think ai has a place. Sometimes (not always), I'll ask ai to check for errors or minor editing (like an editor). At times that works fine. Other times, ai mutilates my writing, and it's not mine anymore. I've actually had aggressive words with ai about that. It apologizes and does it again. Liar!
Once I track that a post is ai written (beyond edits), I not only lose interest but become upset. I feel tricked.
Um... that future post is a very odd comparison. I look forward to seeing how that works.
Hey! Not all posts are for everyone. Some are just because you/we want/need to.
I went to Medium for a minute. Or, I should say that I TRIED to Medium. I didn't love that the posts were expected to be FOR others. Not journal like. Not insightful. Not meaningful in a philosophical way. Medium wants a direct end goal of what the reader gets from it. That's okay at times, but I find it difficult to write with that kind of purpose. Sometimes, I think in writing.
What I'm saying is, you write your posts that are just for you! Some people (not Medium people, apparently) love that.
Sorry, I couldn't get past "cries and whails" lollll.
I used to use this sentence when people would complain (when I worked in a call centre) about my colleagues who had accented voices. :D A biting critique of the human condition, I think!
AI having a place
Like all tools, it is HOW you use it. Just like there's an uncanny valley in computer graphics and robotics, I feel the same sense of uncanniness when reading AI generated text. I feel like I'm pretty good at detecting it. (And my Turing Test goes BEEEP BEEP BEEP, like Deckard from Blade Runner, or the version I much more prefer, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
It is all about how you prompt the machine, and how you understand the response. I like to get a LLM to act as an "interviewer", to really interrogate and clarify my own intent for a piece of writing. Sometimes it gives me better ideas, or sometimes, it gives me horrible ones. It's up to the person's agency and their own brain to determine what is what.
The posts written for yourself are often the best ones, and when you find someone else that appreciates them, it is like falling into a sort of intellectual nirvana. HIVE gives me that feeling, and I thoroughly enjoy engaging in content that allows me to give back that feeling of intellectual nirvana to other authors.
At least, I try!