Ein Blog in zwei Sprachen aus meiner Feder. Nicht alle Einträge werden sowohl auf Deutsch als auch Englisch sein. Aber wer beides kann: viel Spaß beim Lesen!
Here's my blog in two languages. Not all entries will be written bilingually, but if you understand both German and English: have fun reading my musings!

2.10.26 Back to the roots. Kinda. 

Starting a blog nowadays feels a little strange. There are tons of texts out there, people (be it by themselves or with the help of digital tools) optimize their pages with SEO stuff to the point of it all becoming bloated and adapted to algorithms in the hopes of making more money rather than actually connecting with other humans out there. I may be a bit of an old-fashioned person in this regard, as the ubiquity of algorithmic suggestions in the widely used platforms tends to bore me. I remember the days when it was us, humans, who recommended stuff that genuinely moved us to our friends, which some of us still do: sending reels or music videos from a well-known platform that doesn't need to be mentioned. These were different times, and I'd argue that a lot of us used the internet in more reciprocally social ways then, as it wasn't about the most shares, likes, subscription numbers, or even being seen. The latter did happen on some pages that had a visitor counter. But, all in all, if we shared anything with the big, unknown virtual space, it was driven by the idealistic love for our passions & hopes to find other enthusiasts, or to connect to another human being.

A lot of the digital landscape feels like the early days of the internet though. Who is old enough to remember the allure of "women nearby" and questionable pop-ups littering too many websites? Now, we have the same stuff in our apps, and does anyone truly pay attention to any of them? It seems to me that most just skip the ads or block them altogether, if they know how, unwilling to pay for another subscription. And aren't generated "women" the equivalent of the old attractive singles in your area? Still, it seems to me that we did not have as much big-scale fakeness or trolling going on back in the day. For most accounts on any platform & websites that one stumbled upon, it was easy to tell when another human was involved. Now, any person could just let a digital "assistant" generate texts for them based on mass-scale theft of intellectual property. And some statistics claim that the half of traffic isn't coming from real humans anyways, so what is the point of writing a blog? The other half, I would say.

I have not given up hope in our species yet, even if humans are capable of incredible cruelty, and collective ignorance and greed brought us numerous catastrophes. There's mass extinction going on, wars rage, habitats are being destroyed, and it is all too easy to feel low facing the endless suffering of it all. And yet, yet there is also kindness and love, and people who dare to imagine a different, more just world. I see it in my profession all so often: creative kids who refuse to become cruel, my artist colleagues who march in the streets for democracy (which is fitting to start a blog today, as we have the Long Night of Democracy in Mühlacker just today), and of course, my dear friends who show me that love is truly the strongest force in this world.

Writing has been something I've done regularly ever since I learned the Russian alphabet as a little kid. Most of it happened on paper, but then, when pages like MySpace became a thing, I kept a blog where I regularly stayed. The focus on images & short videos of today's big players can make it seem like classical blogs may be obsolete (at least if you're not planning to lure your audience to yet another subscription), but as these platforms are oversaturated by synthetic content ("slop"), I believe that the old-fashioned way of slowly engaging with another person's website may make a beautiful comeback. It is definitely more rewarding than just scrolling past fast-paced reels that are pushed to be as attention-grabbing as possible and "algorithm-friendly". Even sitting down with a book can feel like a quiet rebellion (and you won't be bombarded by ads), when numerous voices suggest that an artist can and shall become a content creator, build an audience, expand a community. But what if not? What if I'm perfectly fine with creating as I always have and let the virtual world spin at a fast pace? And writing for the joy of pouring my thoughts with no intention of monetizing every little bit of my existence?