v1.1 — adding a medialog
is leaving a review on letterboxd inherently performatic? why i decided to start logging my media interactions, why i moved it to my website and how it was the most challenging addition i've made so far.
changelog v1.1
giant adition!!!!!!!!! we have a medialog page now :]
changes
- smaller spacing in sidebar
- learned what a .yaml file is
- media diary to log all of my stuff
- groundwork for proper reviews and notes
- that’s kinda about it tbh
planned (soon)
- finding a good way to display reviews and notes on medialog *new
- more sections on my ‘about me’
- change colours in the comment box
- custom 404
- cool fiction writing project
- better info on ‘visit next’
- a blog post
- credits
- art dump page
- gift and fanart pages
- freebies
planned (who fucking knows)
- /ideas, /now and /bookmarks pages
- better to-do
- about the website
- proper guestbook?
- resources
- dark mode
- askbox, complaintbox, screambox
- already thinking of reworking /media to look better
- posters in medialog
about the medialog
it wasn’t until a year and a half ago that i started to log the movies that i watched. the reason was really kind of a coincidence: we started doing weekly movie nights on my server again around the same time that popfeed was becoming a thing.
(i’m gonna try to not be too mean about popfeed)
popfeed and letterboxd
to make it simple, popfeed is kind of letterboxd + goodreads + serializd + myanimelist. but on atproto. it is supposed to be the ultimate media logging app to beat it all, with all of the cool atproto tech that allows you to own your data and sync it with your account.
i think one of the reasons why i never liked logging things before is because i was expected to have 3 different apps: for movies, series, and anime, so you can imagine how excited i got about it.
in reality, popfeed is not so good…
it is a closed source app by a single dev. it doesn’t work on pc, it has many flaws on mobile, the lexicon doesn’t make it any easy to reuse the data, it doesn’t write a record for things i expected it to, and other problems that are not the focus of this post tbh but i could go on.
at some point i started mirroring everything to letterboxd because one of my friends use it and she wanted to be nosy and oh boy letterboxd actually works lmao.
reviewing is hard!!!!!!!!!!!!
even tho the main reason why i never logged my stuff was a practical one (no unified app), there was also a personal one: it feels weird to put your opinion out there, man!
when you write when i write, i feel like there’s this feeling like i’m just not good enough. i don’t know how to put my thoughts into words, i don’t know how to construct a good narrative, i may not even know what i’m talking about properly.
leaving a “review” feels like such a pressure, i’m no movie critic!!!! it is very scary to just leave a thought out for anyone to read and have opinions about. we i am always afraid of being misunderstood any time i’m trying to speak online.
ok, so why are you doing it then?
well, i actually regret not logging and reviewing movies earlier big time!
two main reasons:
- a lot of the things i’ve watched in the past got lost to time. a lot of things that i liked and now i don’t remember the name of because there’s zero registry
- the only way to get better at writing and stating your opinion is to actually write and state your opinion (who would fucking guess)
so, even if it is a nonsensical word spill, some funny notes, or even just the score system i made up, i want to keep a log of my thoughts and feelings towards any media i interact with. i want to be able to look back at points of my life and see growth.
a lot of this realization came from the fact that i regularly journal now, and it’s been life changing. i don’t look back a lot, but i think it’s important to just talk things out.
with my website not being a giant social network where strangers will algorithmically get my comments recommended to them, i also feel a lot more safe to just get my opinion out.
the technicals of it
it was a lot harder than i expected it to be i’m gonna be so fucking honest i hate javascript i hate typescript apparently i fucking hate myself because this was such a nightmare!!!!!!!!!
but now that it’s all set up, i think i will never have to touch it again (until i decide to make pagination, then im gonna cry)
the actual data is on .yaml files. i’ve decided to make a monthly file, just so it’s easy to edit and search things in the future.
it contains title, date of release, type of media, date logged, score, review and notes. episodes also have season and episode slots.
since i decided to make multiple files, i also made a loader to basically tell astro to “read all yaml files and turn it into a single collection”. this part was actually really cool to learn.
the worst part was to make it load cutely on the page, with yearly and monthly sections and oh my god i’m thinking about pagination again and i’m gonna freak out.
but hey, it looks really nice and i’m really proud :]
some future aditions
i want to add a drop down that actually shows you the review, as well as tumblr-style notes under it (for funny comments that i think are not deserving of review space). i also want to highlight “movie night” and “theatres” tags.
i REALLY want to be able to build a “sorteable” thing, where you can see only a tag but i feel like this is FAR future and a bit above my current skills lmao
website thoughts
i’m actually so so happy that i’m mantaining this on the regular! it really has become a passion project of mine. a lot has changed since my last website.
it feels a bit weird to say that “im no longer a vtuber” but i guess it is true, so the other website that was REALLY focused on being an infohub about the persona just wasnt serving me anymore.
having something a bit more personal, that i can totally turn into something professional in the future, just feels nice. a place to call mine for real.
about my plans
the most immediate thing i want to add is the art dump page. i feel like they always get so lost on the social media timeline, i want to just have a small place for them. it is probably gonna suck ass at first but i do need to add it.
it is really funny that the medialog (something i said it was something for the far future) ended up being something i implemented first, oopsies! but i guess the heart wants what the heart wants.
i will probably use the same layout for the fanart page so that just goes together.
the second thing i want to add is the freebies. i know that people care a lot less about this since i stopped streaming, but i got really cool art that was made to be shared and now they’re just sitting on my computer.
i’m also thinking of just actually having these posts on a blog section since i write way too much lol lmao even
goblin updates
ok i promise at some point i will actually do a journal tab to actually log the new and cool stuff lmao
- finally bought strive so now i gotta actually learn to play it
- i also bought wagotabi and can you believe this bitch is learning japanese??????????
the game was a really nice starter that got me to learn most of hiragana, i don’t know how good will it actually be for actual grammar but if it got me started i think that’s what matters - working on the regular again!
- got invited for a new ttrpg (realis system) and the first table i got to play in like 10 years
- i’m very extremely stressed over the political situation at my country i won’t lie
til the next update!!