Clickbait title: Why do I write like that.

This article will lean a bit hard on meta-references and self-analysing. Reader discretion is advised.

Having now written more, I think it’s a good time to look back and see what kind of stylistic choices I make consistently when pushing myself to write articles.

Looking at the choice of topics, I would argue that I tend to write most about things that are currently bothering me to the point I want to dissect them publicly. I choose issues which are general enough I can feel like I am actually contributing knowledge (and don’t reveal too much about my personal life), whilst still clearly being the kinds of issues that are very me to think about.

I think a big theme in my writing is a level of depersonalisation and distancing from the topics. The issues are discussed in an academic style, where I may give strong anecdotes, but this is clearly not a diary or a personal journal. I think I write like I want to be seen as smart/capable, whilst knowing well-enough to not give the obvious (embarrassing) signals that that is the case. This means any attempt at overconfidence is immediately killed off.

There is also a level of post-irony in my text where a lot of issues are lampshaded or seemingly profound statements are undercut by “or maybe i’m just stupid and imagining things”. I think it’s mainly a defense mechanism against the evoking the cringe I feel sometimes when someone is a bit too full of themselves online.

This is a core conflict in much of my work. I desperately want to share a lot of what I think with others, but I have much experience being on the receiving end of that sharing from people on social media platforms. These people are often annoying, wrong and worst of all, not important to me. The correct answer to this is to get off of social media, but I think my critical mind developed from this apathy towards smartasses can inhibit my own work. (You feel cringe the most about things that remind you of yourself?)

This pseudo-academic style of seemingly dissecting an important topic is I think easier for myself to justify sharing, because it feels in some way like I am helping people whilst also not making many “real-life” claims that put people in danger. This is why I put so many disclaimers whenever I venture on technical territory. I am overcompensating for every crazy health claim on TikTok and every smug redditor.

Sharing my own fiction is a harder ask because that doesn’t have an easy answer to “why should anyone want to read this” and generally fiction requires you to share a lot more how the world and people work. I think I generally push against writing the inner thoughts of people other than me.

It should be noted, however you are reading this, that all articles are written with the goal in mind to make them a public thing that can be sent to others. This of course changes a lot of the dynamics of which thoughts I choose to share and how I address the reader. Even if I emotionally open up further, I still frame it as if this is a dialogue with me and the reader. Some people use silly characters to write entire platonic dialogues to illustrate a concept, I like that.

My choice of words may seem a bit exotic, but I think when established in a broader scope, is actually shockingly monotone. Rather than a broad lexicon, I have just my own weird pseudo-intellectual ways to say something, picked up from many English idiolects all across the YouTube globe.

Sentences may run on for what seems to be far too long, a practice I am actively fighting against in every article. I also make enough mistakes in sentence structure (and I would make even more in spelling if it weren’t for my spellchecker), often forgetting crucial words. Corrections are slow because I tend to not care this much. I tell myself that this at least proves that a real human wrote all this shit.

Arguments are often badly-structured, stemming from the fact that these articles are written front-to-back with very little editing. The usage of paragraphs is questionable at best, but not using any at all would probably be worse. Section titles may or may not be used, but even so sections often flow into each other. I like writing the section titles though.

I love writing the clickbait title as an initial self-deprecating gesture. I think it puts the the whole article into a certain tone that few things can.

From my scholastic past of essay writing, I think I’ve picked up a deep need to pack my articles up with a neat bow. The easiest/laziest way to do this is to define some “take-home” thoughts for the reader. A bit better is writing a conclusion that somehow summarises the topic or shows a through line.