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by Apocryphon 950 days ago
Is to post different from writing? Considering that so much of online user-generated content these days are posts, comments, replies. I’m not even talking about fluffy exhibitionist social media posts or incoherent comments on news articles. I mean supposedly more highbrow comments on special interest aggregator sites such as this. Forums and bulletin boards.

Does that constitute writing? Or are we just creating more ephemeral chaff?
3 comments
pilgrim0 950 days ago
I think posting is, in general, an extension of dialogues, i.e conversation. Writing involves dialogues, of course, but encompasses a much wider field of styles. Ephemerality of the text does not automatically implies reduced value. You’ll get some of the benefits of writing within dialogues but it’s limited by the fact there’s not much room from digression, so less creative freedom and exploratory potential compared to just actively choosing the subject and style, with no particular audience or pre established context in mind. I regard monologues as an expansion of dialogues (a dialogue participation is sort of a monologue if you think about), and there’s a low entry barrier for doing it, can be very enriching and even therapeutical. All in all, I think the author here is talking writing for the sake of writing, which is structured thinking.
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broscillator 950 days ago
As someone who has been doing both daily for a while, yes, they're different.

It's kind of like comparing speaking at a meeting or giving a speech, to talking to a long time friend over coffee, or talking to yourself in the mirror. In the abstract you could say the action is the same, speaking, but the experience as lived is very different.

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082349872349872 950 days ago
Posts can go either way: I would say that some online exchanges have more of an oral cultural character and others have more of a literary cultural character.

(upon reading TFA, it seems it doesn't even care about the oral/literary distinction I had been trying to make; for TFA the important part of posting is the export of thoughts out of one's head, which can be done in either mode?)

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