Daphne Bennett

Carolyn Yoo’s proposal of going quietly public on the internet

I have come across Carolyn Yoo’s Substack, See You, suggesting going online publicly online. She suggests it is possible to own a digital space but outside a social media platform – not instagram, not substack, not YouTube. It can be my blog, my website, somewhere I want to hang out, but not a CV. She suggests one can upload your sketches and unfinished ideas, drawings, screenshots etc, with no intention to attract likes or comments. At my own pace, for my own archive.

I find this a very attractive idea as I have started, paused and failed over the years paying for this online space. I feel too ashamed to share but too sentimental to cut this off. I don’t know what to do with it. I have totally fallen out of social media platforms – the performance and catering to an audience is not for me. I can’t do a booktok for toffee. But I like to read. I think and I overthink. I am mum with a a husband working aboard, working a parttime job and studying an MPA. I want to write about my learning journey. And encourage myself to paint and write more, for myself. I would like a space I can polish my writing, distill my feelings, record my observations and reading, challenge my preconceptions and join some dots together – all without showing my face or my voice, and without AI.

Carolyn Yoo says ‘I am a quiet person in real life. Why should I exist differently online?’ – that’s very true, I can’t do the public face. My chosen part in a school play would be a tree in the background. I still need to find my place in the world, I have no choice but to exist in this play. Therefore, if there’s no existing prewritten role, I will have to create that.

I don’t think this website attract much traffic anyway, which is a brilliant thing. I am treating it like my own home, where I am learning to paint my walls and install a blind but not a portfolio to be a joiner or decorator, if that makes sense.

So this is my proposal –

I would write a post about books I read or interesting quotes living rent free in my head, a post about my progress in my MPA/ tech development and a post about drawing/walking/life in general.

I think this will make a good start.