Back in March (which feels like it was 6 months ago), I helped organise the IndieWebCamp London and one of the sessions was about analytics and the IndieWeb. At the time I blurted something without much context and I think I need to explain myself.

Analytics on this blog

Every once in a while I reactivate my analytics subscription on Netlify (and right now I am actually doing a trial of Fathom). This usually happens when I am getting unusual social media activity and I get curious/nervous to try to find out where it could be coming from. In a previous blog post, I explained that I don’t have analytics anymore because I found that they were a personal source of anxiety. Maybe not so much now, but they were some years ago and when I stopped using them, I actually felt pretty good about it and carried on.

As the wiki page for analytics in IndieWeb points out in the “criticism” section, not having analytics on a personal website has its upsides around performance and privacy. I personally don’t care what anyone does on their personal website. I don’t have any intentions of imposing my opinion and personal preference about this matter on others.

Whenever I do turn the analytics on, I found them to be super useful to find out where have I messed up: for example, when I converted my blog from Jekyll to Eleventy I deprecated my JSON feed because I couldn’t figure out how to build it (and while I was writing this, I looked up and turns out someone created it) and eventually I had data to back this up: to this date, my analytics show, on the section that tells me what resources were not found, it seems like only one person was actually calling it (i’m so sorry to that person and I will fix this!). It also helps me find out what links I have actually typed incorrectly in my bookmarks section.

I don’t like “likes” as they are

Recently, the social media platform Instagram, has announced that they would be trialing hiding the number of likes in posts. This is a response to a public outcry of how this particular social media is a source of mental health issues among our youth. This is where things get a bit tough. I want to be a “cool woman” and claim that “yeah I don’t care about likes” but that isn’t true. I am a very ordinary human with the same dopamine features as anyone else and I would be raising my hand if someone said “never have I ever deleted a funny tweet because no one liked it”. To me, it is a tiny bit embarrassing to admit this but don’t we all care a tiny little bit? Well I’ve been working on getting used to not having a reaction when I share something. Unfortunately, having this feature impact one’s self worth is more common than what we think.

Regardless of how you personally let “likes” affect you, hear me out: if we, as a society, allow ourselves to feel that “likes” or the exact lack of them, somehow define the worth of what we shared, isn’t that saying that the “like” is a metric? A very reduced way of having some sort of analytics?

And for what it is worth: I love liking people’s stuff. I hit “like” all the time! On Instagram, I always “like” what my close friends post (even if it is a photo of my least favourite dish) because I want to show them that “I see you and I care”. My mum likes every single thing I post on facebook, even if it is in English and she doesn’t understand it.

It is a feature that has layers of emotion.

In the past, I used to have in my twitter bio: “some likes are bookmarks” because I was using Twitter’s “like” feature as a bookmark. Other times I was doing a “like” to support what someone posted or a “like” because something made me laugh.

Also on Twitter, in the past I’ve restrained myself from “liking” things because I didn’t want to lose the respect of people I admire. I would stop myself from “liking” cute cat videos because I was too afraid that my interaction would appear on their feed and people would unfollow me. I know, I’m insecure.

I recently noticed that I was doing something unhelpful to my cause. When I am scrolling on TikTok, I instantly scroll through videos that don’t have a single like or only have a handful of them. My brain instantly thinks: “not a lot of likes, not worth it”. I don’t even give them a chance and that sucks.

The few times I posted on Medium or Dev.to I realised that I was constantly looking at their “claps”/”likes”. And yeah, the numbers didn’t go up so I felt silly posting there. I feel silly for admitting this here.

In a tangent and in all honesty, our tech community looks at the numbers of “likes” (or followers) to deem something or someone as worthy of other’s time. That’s how the algorithms sometimes work anyway. And maybe, just maybe, our brains may have become trained to ignore small numbers.

“Likes” in the IndieWeb

In the analytics and IndieWeb session, I shouldn’t have stirred and connected analytics and “likes” in such a loose way where I didn’t explain properly where I was coming from. My usage and view of “likes” is not the way everyone sees it and that’s okay.

I love how the IndieWeb shows us ways we can have interaction in our personal website and even ways to bring likes from silos to our website. When I learned that, I was so excited! It was one of the things that drew me to the community: an alternative. I care a lot about the IndieWeb and promoting it. I really want people to know that you can have exciting web actions on your personal website.

I also care a lot about how social media is having an impact on mental health and what I, a developer, am doing about it. I know “likes” aren’t going away and I’m not trying to push for that. Personally, I don’t think “likes” are a healthy thing at the moment so I don't think I’m going to have “likes” on my blog. I might change my mind in the future.

And the cool thing about IndieWeb and your personal website is that you’re in control of what you show and what you’re comfortable with.

Black Lives Matter.

In today's age with today's resources there is no excuse not to educate yourself and see how we're in a racist society.

Follow the folks who talk about racial injustice. Think how the technology we're building is tracking and tracing everyone who is protesting. Learn about data regulations. Learn the tricks of the media.

Here's a couple of things I think everyone should see. However, I urge you all to please diversify the feeds you consume.

• Black Lives Matter;
• We the protesters;
• Equal Justice Initiative;
• Anti racism resources;
• Save the Tears: White Woman's Guide by Tatiana Mac;
• Twitter thread #1;
• Twitter thread with petitions;
• Know your rights for stop and search (UK) - Twitter thread;
• Tips for calling out racist posts - Twitter thread;
• Twitter thread of places you can donate to ;
• Anonymise your online footprint (Twitter);
• Twitter thread to white educators;
• Donate to BlackMindsMatter UK (Twitter thread);
• Database of Black activists, swers, creatives, and astrologers/spiritualists to support;
• Guide to what to say when people deny the reality of what's happening right now (Instagram);
• How can I help from Europe? (Instagram);
• The racist legacy of Portuguese colonialism (Instagram);
• Black and POC designers that the fashion industry has silenced (Instagram);
• Racial gaslighting 101 (Instagram);
• "this is to my white friends with feed fatigue" (Instagram);
• Racismo em Portugal (Instagram);
• Supremacy system (Instagram);

Tech bookmarks can wait another month. This is what matters.

I don't remember much from this last month. All I remember is trying not to be on my computer and just look at the birds that come to the garden. So this will be a very short blog post. A jotting!!!!

Bookmarks from April

Web development/tech related content

• @aimee.gm/responsive
• Front-end Bookmarks by Manuel Matuzović.
• 98.css by Jordan Scales.
• Mozilla Accessibility.
• BEM naming cheat sheet by 9elements.

Not exactly web development related

• Explorable Explanations.
• Gears by Bartosz Ciechanowski.

Miscellaneous

Funny or cute or happy or uplifting content etc.

• Lots of babies.
• All the cartoons from this account.
• Baby fox.
• A big avocado tree.
• What we can see now that the skies are clear.
• Just a boy and his cat.
• Weather man dog.
• A round cat.

Around two months ago I started to work from home everyday due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I wasn't really going to write about this as it is hardly positive but I changed my mind after reading an article suggesting the exact opposite. This article introduced me to my brand new favourite word: jottings!!

So I will try to keep it brief. The last two months have been hard and have been a blur. I've had loved ones fall ill to the virus and people that I knew are no longer here. It's been overwhelming to follow the news in Portugal and in the UK and caring about both countries. It was hard knowing that loved ones were ill in Portugal when I couldn't fly. And coming to terms to the fact that if the worst happens, I couldn't be there and I can't do anything about it.

I've been working from home and there were many days that I genuinely don't remember happening. There were days where I was so anxious I couldn't breathe. There were days that my eyelids were so heavy. I've been exhausted. So I wasn't as productive. And then I felt guilty about that so I would work extra hours to make up for it. I had to stop that cycle.

The irony is that I "predicted it" since I am someone who constantly suffers from productivity shame. There were many tweets of people saying that we should "take this lockdown as an opportunity to learn and be better at your job". But like many, I couldn't. This is why I've been away from social media (twitter) because I don't want to feel even more useless.

Everything has started to happen online: tech events, seeing my friends and family, quizzes, my therapist appointments, all work meetings and that has been draining too. I've been shutting down my computer at the end of the day and during the weekends because it can be too much.

While I was writing this post, I scrolled through my phone to see the photos that I had taken in the last two months. While most photos were of my cat and my plants (who deserve their own blog post because they are beautiful and make me happy) some were also of the empty shelves in the supermarket and how much I cried that day. I couldn't stop thinking of all the people who didn't get a chance to buy food and how many people were going to struggle so much. In one of my shopping trips, I saw someone verbally abuse a staff member of the supermarket - someone immediately intervened.

With that episode in mind and the current fines for breaking the rules in lockdown, even though I'm very lucky and privileged, I can't help but worry about hidden repercussions against immigrants. And finally, as a woman, the daily news of increase of domestic violence and intimate image abuse have been breaking my heart.

Everything has been poopy but still I am one of the lucky ones. There's lots of people going through a lot worse.

End of jotting! A longer and happier post will come in the next couple of days. Stay safe and healthy.

I announced on twitter a couple of days ago that I went a bit rogue on my blog. I removed all the CSS after converting it from Jekyll to Eleventy and I want a brand new design for it. The trouble is I'm not a designer.

It doesn't help that I have an irrational hate for white backgrounds. I was just now looking up on Pinterest for some inspiration when I realised that I wasn't looking at "blog designs". I was looking at notebooks. When I want to think about my blog, I look at everything but web design. In fact, my previous blog design, was inspired by a scrapbook pin. This tiny fact was actually buried in my memory because only just now I re-visited my saved pins.

There are rare moments where I see something, like a painting or a concert and I immediately think: "how can I make my blog look like that?" and it isn't even... a web medium thing!

I've added a tiny bar at the top of the website to let people know that this is a very raw redesign and it might take a while. I'm sure my blog looks much better in an RSS reader. I've also reduced the size of the main image so that a cat bum isn't the first thing people see.

I'm still working out how it will look like. And then I will make it super IndieWeb! Until there, I will vent in my workplace slack channel about how much all I want is a pretty blog.