Thinking About

Discussing The Impact Of An Audience + Sharing My Summer Blogging Schedule

/ Ally Bean / 179 Comments

The Impact Of An Audience

a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing

AFTER I READ WHAT I read, I couldn’t stop thinking about the advice that many people found inspirational. Considering I had worked in a world where “know your audience” was the mantra, what I read seemed off-base.

Yet being open-minded I got thinking about it. Oddly enough it seemed like good advice and bad advice in one paradoxical statement. So in an attempt to get to the heart of what this advice meant I talked with a few friends about it.

We couldn’t agree about what to make of it.

So what, you might be asking yourself, did I read that lead to pondering and *perhaps* profundity? I read this brief article entitled: Amanda, There Is No Audience.

The title IS the simple advice that may or may not make sense to you depending on your personality and/or your idea of community. You might like or not like the advice depending on the context and/or who is saying it to you.

There are variables.

As best I can figure, and I’m sure you will tell me if I am wrong, the advice is saying that in order to not second-guess yourself, which is a positive thing, you have to not care about what other people think about you and your choices.

There’s a truth to that.

Don’t give your power away to just anyone or anything.

But how you use your own power seems to divide people in a philosophical way that reveals how you think about the people around you and any influence they may, or may not, have on you.

Anyhoo the issue, simplified, comes down to how the advice resonates with you:

• Do you, like Amanda, find this advice inspiring because by denying you have an audience you’re free from judgment and this allows you to do what you want to do unhindered? You are alone.

OR

• Do you find this advice unrealistic because to think no one is watching you is delusional, but in spite of that by ignoring what the audience suggests you are productive? You are indifferent.

Thoughts, anyone?

My Summer Blogging Schedule 

image via pagesbyleanne

LIGHT is my guiding word this year.

Thus in order to allow more light into my life, The Spectacled Bean will be on SPRING/SUMMER HOURS until further notice.

I’ll post here every couple of weeks, reply to comments, and check-in with you on your blogs every so often because I try to keep up with you, my bloggy friends.

Take it easy, everyone. Let the light shine on you.

Do good. Play nice. Be happy.

• • 😎 • •

Because You Asked: Threads Is, Among Other Things, A Conundrum

/ Ally Bean / 224 Comments

• • •

Boom! Yep, that’s my number.

• • •

WHY ARE YOU ON THREADS, THEY ASK

A few people irl and online have asked me about my experiences on Threads so I’ll answer here. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Threads is Facebook/Meta’s version of Twitter/X.

I was there on Day One clocking in at 20,708,590 out of over 100 million people who joined worldwide on that day, July 6, 2023. Find me on Threads by clicking HERE.

And yes I know many friends and gentle readers think I’m loony, question my sanity, to have even joined in a new social media… but hear me out. I have my reasons.

I’m a curious person, a social scientist at heart, who saw an opportunity to be part of a social media from the beginning. Even though I’ve been on many social media over the decades* I’ve never had this option before so I jumped in.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, I’m on Threads so you don’t have to be. Yes, I’m living the experience for all of us here in this little corner of blogland. You may thank me in the comments below!

• • •

Social media active users indicating the most popular places to be †

• • •

WHO IS THERE WITH YOU ON THREADS, THEY WONDER

This, of course, is a good question that I’ll field by first saying the following brief summary: a bunch of nice enough people**.

Then I’ll break down some specifics because that is what I believe people want to know. For me, after 7 months of checking in every few days and posting something when I am there as well as leaving wordy comments for others, I have a whopping 281 followers.

✅ One follower I know in real life.

✅ Six followers are current bloggers who like me are attempting to utilize Threads by showing up every so often and joining in. Click on the name to go to their Threads account, on their blog name to visit their blog:

✅ Some of my followers are current bloggers who are there in name only. OR, in a total surprise, a few former bloggers I knew a decade ago showed up, one even saying: “so you’re still here.” I do not know how to take that.

✅ Many, maybe most, of my followers are people who I’ve connected with on Instagram.

✅ I also have followers who are new-to-me and THAT makes me happy, giving me some hope for Threads.

• • •

Information is my love language, but I my not be the norm †

• • •

What Is The Purpose of Threads As You See It, They Inquire

Yes, again a good question that I will succinctly answer with my take and then add a famous quote that summarizes lyrically how I think about Threads.

My Take – Threads serves no discernible purpose beyond being a pleasant pretty distraction.

A Famous Quote – From John Lennon’s song Nobody Told Me: “There’s always something cooking and nothing in the pot.” 

• • •

On Twitter by creating my own personal lists as seen here I was able to keep track of people, something I cannot do on Threads.

• • •

And Finally Why Is Threads A Conundrum, Please Explain

I have three reasons why I believe Threads is a conundrum, a word that can mean a riddle, or a puzzle, or a poser even.

1) The thing about Threads is there is no center to it to draw people to a communal “What’s Happening” section or a Writing Prompt or a Weekly Topical Challenge. It’s all random all the time.

Hence, a riddle.

2) When you show up and look at your “Following” tab the algorithm shows you who it wants you to see and because, unlike Twitter, Threads doesn’t allow you create lists of who you follow, you cannot efficiently follow anyone. Thus the algorithm impedes connections.

Hence, a puzzle.

3) Threads is the only social media wherein I’ve seen so many people, so often, not reply even with a LIKE, to wordy comments left for them. Is Threads not notifying them that someone paid attention to them? That’s the only kind explanation*** I can think of which makes me question if Threads is really meant to be a viable social media at all.

Hence, a poser. 

~ THE END ~

* Since the late 1990s I’ve been involved in Geocities, Myspace, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, Twitter, 43 Things, Tumblr, Mastodon, and now Threads. I’ve seen things, kids… oh yes I have. 😣

** The only sort of rude behavior I’ve encountered was a man who tried to start a fight with me because I said something to the effect of, and try not to be offended, that adults should behave like grown-ups when interacting with other adults rather than behaving like they were in a child/adult relationship. He took umbrage with that idea… perhaps forever wanting to be a child? 🤷‍♀️

*** A less kind explanation would be that I’m not wanted so I’ve been intentionally ignored in the hope that I’ll go away. Which could happen. 🤔

† Source: “As Facebook turns 20, politics is out; impersonal video feeds are in” via The Economist [probably not behind a paywall, but I can’t tell for sure]

Positivity Got You Down? Let Me Suggest Something

/ Ally Bean / 273 Comments

Not everyone grooves on uplifting thoughts all the time.

I understand this.

In fact when I was in college there were no Gratitude Journals, that wasn’t a thing like it is today.

Instead we kept what we called Bitch Books. They were nothing special to look at, just spiral notebooks with a theme, however it sounded better to refer to them as Bitch Books.

So we did.

To clarify, we called them this not because we thought of ourselves as bitches, even if we might have been, but because we needed a place to write about our issues, all the wrongs that we felt we’d suffered.

Oy vey!

Granted we also discussed our issues in lengthy conversations with a few people who would now be called your negativity friends [HERE], but often there were hurts that could only be expressed adequately, with the proper amount of collegiate drama, by writing about them ad nauseam in our Bitch Books.

We hid our books from our nosy roommates and unenlightened boyfriends because they could never know what we were really thinking. Heaven forbid there’d be open authentic communication.

We knew that our profs would never see the crap we’d written about them, so many pages of my book were filled with deets of professorial incompetence, stupidity, and hypocrisy. No surprise, huh?

I’d not thought about Bitch Books in decades, and probably wouldn’t have thought about them again, if it weren’t for an advertisement that shows up, unsolicited, on my Instagram feed*.

This intrusive ad confirms that everything old is new again. To wit, let me share a link to today’s version of a Bitch Book.

It’s stylish, something that’s now called a Grievance Journal [HERE], described by Boardwalk Gifts, the purveyor of it, as a “the perfect repository for all your existential angst and daily gripes!” 

Which no doubt it is.

And here’s the dealio, which is really where I’m going with this post. For a mere $28.00 you, my little bitches gentle readers, can purchase your very own Grievance Journal in which you, if you feel the need, can write about all the crap that happens to you.

OR, and this is just a thought, you could replicate what we did back in the day and write your angsty unhappiness in an 1 Subject College Ruled Spiral Notebook [HERE] currently available for $3.39 at Target.

It’s your money and your life, of course.

Obviously I don’t know how much bitching you need to do, so please, I encourage you, do what you feel suits you best.

* I’m on Instagram as thespectacledbean [HERE]

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever heard of an old-school Bitch Book or a new-fangled Grievance Journal?

Have you written one? Why or why not?

Did you once have, or do you now have, negativity friends?

• 💚 •

The One About Phonies And Alter Egos And Solving Problems, Maybe

/ Ally Bean / 241 Comments

I AM A REALIST. I am who I am regardless of where I am.

As such, being a naturally inquisitive person, I find people who are phonies, that is people who pretend to be someone they’re not, endlessly interesting.

Thought-provoking, in fact.

[E.g., Elizabeth Holmes or George Santos or Rachel Dolezal.]

They are my opposites and tweak my curiosity about the line between reality and fantasy, between harmless daydreaming and unhealthy delusion.

Allow me to explain.

Thinking back over my years of blogging I’m reminded of one blogger in particular who wrote her blog as if she wasn’t who she was. This wasn’t flash fiction nor was it catfishing, mind you, but saying upfront this is a fantasy of who I wish I was, a different personality, so I’ll write all my posts as this alternate version of me.

She lived in a small midwestern town but pretended she was living in a large southern city.  She thought of herself as a resident of that large city and she’d describe her days doing the same things she did now [working, shopping, dining] AS IF she lived there.

The thing was that for me after reading her posts I couldn’t decide if this phony persona was just kind of a fun thing, a light-hearted goof; OR if there was something seriously wrong in her life that prompted her to become someone else, albeit briefly.

In truth I was never sure how to comment on what she wrote, so I politely wandered away from her blog and I cannot even tell you if she’s still around.

I doubt it, though.

• • •

SO WHY AM I talking about this topic today?

Not because I idealize or hold any animosity toward this former blogger, but because of something I read a few months ago and have pondered on since. This something got me thinking and wondering– and reminded me of her.

Believe it or not.

What I read was advice written by someone who claimed to be a mental health therapist. This seemingly legit advice was about how to solve what may appear to you to be an intractable problem.

The advice suggested that you create an alter ego of yourself [not a super hero] that you use to contemplate your problem; an alter ego was defined simply as a different version of you. The advice said that by mentally running the details of your problem through your mind as your alter ego, you’d gain clarity.

Now I have problems, who doesn’t? And I do try to solve them, but never have I ever thought about creating an alter ego of myself, for any reason. I may be too pragmatic, or unimaginative, for such.

Or snarky. Perhaps I’m too snarky.

But I digress.

So tell me, kids, does the idea of creating an alter ego of yourself, something I’d describe as a phony version of yourself, seem like a way to gain real insight into your problems? Have you ever done this? And if so, how’d it go for you?

I’m curious to know what you think about this approach to solving problems. Do you feel it is sound or is it wackadoodle?

Please discuss below.