"When you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than your ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude people. So create."
- Why The Lucky Stiff
@dansup _why was the best
@dansup
Yay, someone else who knew _why !
Ⓥ
@dansup
Long after first reading this, it's stayed with me. I always felt uncomfortable at the celebration of obsession I saw with niches of prepackaged, cultural artifacts, whether music, food, manga, coffee, TikTok channels, furniture, you name it. These things aren't inherently bad, but for a weird expectation that anyone who likes them should be obsessed more than all the people around them. The model consumer, separated from other people by the need to be the "biggest" fan (consumer).
@Blort @dansup What _why said echoes my comments about why the US app market could not have produced what is most loved about TikTok: ad hoc collabs. https://youtu.be/UgsurPg9Ckw
That’s because users are seen as people to hurl boxes o’ stuff at, not creators in their own right.
@dansup @tchambers I’m going to be chewing on this for awhile, the implications are deep.
Some interesting insight, via #NPR's #Throughline, regarding "creativity":
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1187308859/no-bad-ideas
And while I'm here, thanks for keeping active on #Pixelfed, which is quite the hub of people who create.
!
@deirdresm @james @dansup they built a cool ruby ui thing and then I never really heard about them after that. I have also wondered where they are. Is this known?
@deirdresm @james @dansup I think they are okay. That’s very good to hear. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
@deirdresm @james @dansup I was thinking about that while mixing up some dough… it’s pretty wild, no?
Software is pretty much transcribed thought stuff.
There’s nothing inherent about it to make it any less durable than mathematics. (Digital) software has complete innate durability, and can be embodied in to an infinite variety of forms or medium, losing nothing of its message.
And yet, last year’s hot repos don’t build 
@dansup @tonyarnold I’ve thought about this recently, and I believe people who don’t create are incapable of understanding the nature of skill, and are more likely to undervalue the work of others.
@dansup whatever happened to Why?
@dansup
Refinement is rejection. ~Voltaire
Or as Steven Pressfield put it in his book Going Pro;
"The pro writes, the amateur tweets."
Replace "writes" with any genuinely creative activity - *including* social media posting that's genuinely creative - and the same applies. Replace "tweets" with any form of snobbish criticism, including novel-length books that just bag other people's creation, same same.
@dansup I just created an account. The site looks pretty good, congrats! Er.. the site doesn't seem to recognize photos from my Apple phone which saves them in HEIC format. However, it did recognize something I had in jpg. Maybe I did something wrong? The vast majority of my photos are in that HEIC format.
@dansup These words are medicine. Thank you.