Taking Back Our Content
We've been so overtaken by our podcast lately (It's fun! It's timely! Listen to our witty banter!) that we've let the prose part of the site lag. Honestly, I don't know about you, but my tolerance level for Hot Takes has plummeted. Man, I am tired of opinions. Even my own. (Don't worry—the closer we get to mid-terms, I'm sure that tolerance will rebound.)I'm also getting *real* tired of Facebook. Not necessarily my friends on the site, but the dictatorship the company has become. Because they weren't vigilant enough to keep Russians from stealing our election, our feeds are now the online equivalent of a Bravo weekend schedule: viral videos, brightly colored panels with pithy one-liners, and the occasional loud argument. Facebook has cracked down so hard on fake news - or at least they think they have - that journalists and writers are trying to game the algorithm by embedding links in the comments section, rather than direct sharing. I'm over it. As I'm sure you are too.So I'm drying my hair this morning - when I do all my best thinking - and pondering where to go with content on Graceless in between the kick-ass writing we'll always feature. And I remembered that way back in the early days of blogging, people shared little tidbits on their Blogger accounts or Tumblr or one of the jillion other sites that popped up to absorb your missives and share them with the world. They wrote a couple of paragraphs about this funny thing that happened on the subway or shared a picture of their cat being cute. You know, all the stuff that eventually got consumed by the ever-hungry Facebook beast. I want to get back to that. I want my content back.I don't, however, know what that looks like. I know that I don't want Facebook to be my primary form of sharing and conversation anymore. I want that to happen here instead, on Graceless. I'd love this site to be an actual homepage we visit every day (though I'm not entirely sure people do that anymore.) I'd love for people to share their own little tidbits with us, even if it's just a funny joke you heard in a bar last night.I just want to take those parts that used to be great about Facebook and build a community from the already kick-ass people we have in the Graceless world. What do you think? We're recording the Graceless Happy Hour tomorrow (Thursday) and would love to bring your comments and thoughts into it. How much are you using Facebook these days and for what purpose? If you've drifted away from it, how are you staying connected with people? Comment on our Facebook post (I know) or hit me up on Twitter, and we'll talk about it on the podcast tomorrow!In the meantime, here is a bit from John Mulaney's first Netflix special that had me and my daughter in tears last night. Stay sane, my friends.