So I'd like to have a blog for (inoffensive at best) art criticism, probably mostly music and video games as I feel like everyone and their sister is writing movie and book reviews. I'm mostly interested in using writing as a tool to develop my skill at expressing my viewpoint, secondly have something little external to direct my engagement with media. My direct inspiration is @comrade_yui on Twitter and Letterboxd.com, who I find to be quite articulate on film and clearly has been grinding at the skills I've been honkering for.

I have some wishes and some grievances:

1. I dislike platforms that are concerned with quantification of things, whether stars, likes, or whatever, which directly aggregates what I write or interact with in some algorithmic way into Content or advertising. It's sort of like how using Tinder for many people doesn't seem to be about getting laid or finding your way into a relationship, but rather getting matches. Getting matches overtakes the original desires, which then parasitizes the original purpose of using the app. People, mostly men, become really superstitious about the whole proceeding.
2. Certainly I'm no good enough to write professionally or even panhandle through Patreon, nor interested in that. It's a selfish project to write a little bit bimonthly, that's all.
3. Blogspot and blogger are a bit too old school for my tastes. I have trouble articulating why, but it's not something that can be fixed with mere CSS.
4. I know how to code and could, like, potentially make my own stuff from scratch - either just write pure html or something little bit more dynamic, but I care about typography and webdesign enough to not want to submit my readers to that reign. I care about typography and webdesign, but I don't have chops in them, so I can really only hope to be a somewhat enlightened consumer. As much as I'd like to believe that it's the work itself that's most important, I don't want to subject people to visual presentation that's offensive as even ok writing isn't worth that.
5. I'm techie enough that I might get some hosting and run blog hosting software on it in lieu of just using some sort of ready made service.
6. I dislike Tumblr enough not to want to have a blog there. Like eight years ago I would have seen it as ideal, but not now. It's too much of a social media platform and who knows what will happen to it in near future. It's apparently introduced some app walls on mobile, which is the exact opposite of the openness I'd like to embrace.
7. I might like to have more than one blog, two of them being wholly write-only affairs. It would be nice if this could be done through a single account/system or w/e.

I hope my ramblings arouse some suggestions.