Credit: DICK DANIELS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Welcome to my new blog, Temple of Sociology. I am moving to Substack for simple reasons: it’s easy to use, it’s free, and it has great features. I’ve chosen September 11 as the start date because it’s my 50th birthday. Time for renewal.
In this first post, I’d like to reflect a little on what I’ve learned from about 18 years of social media writing. First, it can be liberating. You can build a great audience without the need for an editor. While writing will always be a tough way to make a living, social media has definitely increased the number of people who can make an impact through the written word.
Second, I’ve learned that there’s a lot of noise in the social media world. Twitter, the most popular social media platform for academics, is notorious for this. For every excellent well written thread, there’s a pile of content free political posts and not so clever one-liners.
That is why the first post of Temple of Sociology is called “The Sparrow’s Song.” I read an article at Atlas Obscura explaining how birds developed deeper and more ornate songs during the COVID era because car noise decreased. The same happens to writers. To get above the din of social media, you need to be shrill. I don’t wish to be that way.
Does that mean I will stop writing sharp posts? Of course not. But by placing them in the Substack platform, I am hoping to write posts that rise above a reddit or Twitter thread. I want real conversations, not yelling matches. So welcome to the Temple, acolytes, and gather around for some good talk.
++
My books: Grad Skool Rulz - cheap advice manual for grad students / The history of Black Studies / Obama and the antiwar movement / A Social Theory book you will enjoy reading / Intro Sociology for $1 per chapter
😊🎂, 👍🏽😽