comfort bloggers
VonGiorno recently talked about reading the same blogs over and over again. The summary is that are always the same people on Trending, which means most people read just those, so we need more blogger diversity and attention for posts that otherwise go under.
I think Xavier talked about it before also, and there was a bigger discussion about echo chambers on here before.
I agree with many points, or at least I can understand where it comes from. I’ve made an effort recently to hide more of my posts from the feed via make_discoverable: false, used the chance to blog about some stuff not many would upvote anyway, reduced my posting frequency and I sent Herman a suggestion about adjusting the Trending algorithm to take into account if someone is on Trending multiple times already. That would prevent me from showing up there with like 6 separate posts. There’s not much more I can do, hope that helps?
Both Xavier and VonGiorno had some aspect about increasing visibility for supposedly undervalued posts by posting some they like. I think that’s good; I try to do something similar by linking people whenever I reference their posts or reply to them, there’s my cool-links tag (which fair enough, didn’t have that many Bearblog posts yet, but some). Since a little while now, I also have a link in my garden where you can discover more blogs and personal websites, and I’m almost done with reinstating my new blogroll. When someone described the Bearblog Discover section pretty negatively, I pointed out what good posts are in there. I check it every day myself, and barely pay attention to Trending. So, I get wanting to diversify a bit and encourage others to check some things out. Many others offer their own postrolls and link collections, like Jedda.
But there’s one thing I find myself disagreeing with; maybe I’m not in the position to judge or it sounds defensive or self serving, but it has something to do with the concept of a comfort blogger, which at least has something overlap with the issue of echo chambers. The comfort blogger is described as being someone we read constantly because we like what they write and how they express it, so we don’t explore further and stay with who we’re comfortable with - which is similar in some ways to the criticism leveled against bubbles and echo chambers online. “Comfort bloggers” could be part of a Bearblog echo chamber, for example.
Back then when echo chambers were discussed, I said:
“Another ick I have, at this point, is how "echo chamber" is used. It seems to be used for any space that has similar topics all the time now, and it immediately paints that as a bad thing. I usually think the argument is pretty lazy - something just gets labeled an echo chamber, without explaining why, or how that's bad. I understand that political echo chambers are bad and a breeding ground for negative, dangerous radicalization, and I understand that diversity of voices is important. But when this concept gets applied to anything now, it is watered down. Is a basketball club an echo chamber, because it doesn't discuss or offer other sports? Is a book club an echo chamber, because it will focus on books and not the movie adaptations? Are people engaging in echo chambers for having a favorite magazine or author? I just don't think each supposed "echo chamber" is alike, or per se bad, and doesn't necessarily deserve the term.”
I feel similarly about the term comfort blogger. I understand pushing for more diversity; it makes sense elsewhere, like needing different sources for an argument you’re trying to make, something scientific you’re trying to do, or trying to form an opinion on something. We know how just following the same people the algorithm shows you on social media can radicalize you, and how important diversity of news sources is to get the full picture.
But with blogs? Especially on here? I see no harm just following the people you wanna follow via RSS feed and tune the rest out, if you want to. Why is comfort now bad, in such a mundane little thing? The most interesting and/or popular blogs on here are rather diverse anyway, via their identity, jobs, hobbies or what they post about. You might start following them for tech or social media commentary and now they’re blogging about their menstrual cycle (sorry). I don’t think you run into the issue of radicalization or propaganda on here generally by following what things happen in the lives of specific bloggers.
So, what else could be the problem? If I understand correctly, it comes down to bigger bloggers taking people’s attention away from the smaller blogs. But I don’t agree with the premise that upvotes and views are this scarce thing you can take away from someone - or eyeballs, or time - and that we have to employ reminder posts that the Recent tab exists that will hopefully redistribute them? We are all on the same Recent Posts tab, everyone knows and sees that link, and I have started there too. Since then, many others have become popular from there, without sharing their blog elsewhere or advertising it. The system still works and you can “break out”, so to say. The very post this is about is a good sign of that.
I guess what icks me about it is that it has so much of this social media mindset about upvotes. The assumption that everyone wants them, that some get too little while others get too much. There’s disclaimers about how that’s no shade and the bloggers are probably are good, but if we spin the mindset further, it assumes that people only read that one person and no one else and that they get the attention because people don’t look at other blogs, which I don’t understand as a take at all. Why would they not explore? How would you know this? Isn’t this somehow a made-up issue that sounds plausible at first but doesn’t hold up when you think about it? If the core issue is “don’t rely on Trending”, then you don’t need to introduce the concept of a comfort blogger, which implies people are too attached to a specific one, instead of saying they rely too much on an algorithm.
Plus, I feel like making it about alleged comfort bloggers instead of only encouraging people to branch out and linking some postrolls or your own post list takes away from the initial good appeal of boosting others, and instead shades some while criticizing you for who you do or do not read; and who is vagued as being a comfort blogger makes it more personal than it needs to be. At some point it just comes across like that term is just there to avoid saying someone’s name directly.
I think just because you regularly read someone’s writing doesn’t make them your “comfort blogger”, it just means you appreciate their writing and/or want to keep up with what happens in their life, like a friend. Thanks to email and following up with each other, keeping up with a blogger doesn’t even have to be parasocial. It doesn’t need a word that lowkey demonizes that behavior as too inconsiderate or monotonous, or like you’re not pushing yourself enough to consume more online content.
I think if we wanna highlight some posts, we can just do that and say this deserves more attention without being weird about who usually gets it, or raising an issue about popularity or acting like we’re getting people some justice and leveling the playing field about… likes and Trending on a niche blogging platform?
And honestly, the good intention of the first post was ruined for me when I read the second post. I really really am on board with highlighting people and adjusting the Trending algorithm if possible and I was mostly in line with the first post, but that followup didn’t make it seem like that at all to me. Now with that context and this huge amount of text celebrating being on Trending for once, it just seems like the first post was actually salty about not trending and using the concept of a comfort blogger to vaguely complain about people who usually do. It looks even worse when the end of it highlights your own posts only. It probably wasn’t the intention, but that followup really icked me and changed how I viewed the first one and it disappointed me. I’m sorry to say that.
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Would love to know from others if a comfort blogger is an issue in their eyes.
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Published 13 Mar, 2025