Why I have been writing a niche history blog for 15 years

I was 25 years old when I started writing the blog version of Res Obscura, which ran from 2010 to 2023 (and still exists here ).

当我开始编写 Res Obscura 的博客版本时，我才 25 岁，该版本从 2010 年运行到 2023 年（现在仍然存在）。

This was the early summer of 2010.

那是2010年的初夏。

I was a second-year PhD student in history, living with two roommates in a 1920s bungalow on the east side of Austin.

我是历史学博士生二年级学生，和两个室友住在奥斯汀东区一栋 20 年代的平房里。

And I was very dedicated to the idea that you should aim to write a new blog post every day:

我非常坚信你应该每天写一篇新的博客文章：

This is a concept that the 40-year-old version of me, with two young kids and zero free time, cannot even begin to fathom.

对于 40 岁的我来说，带着两个年幼的孩子和零空闲时间，这个概念甚至无法开始理解。

It’s also a practice of the old internet that simply doesn’t exist anymore — one of many digital behaviors that was swallowed up by social media.

这也是旧互联网的一种做法，但现在已经不复存在了——这是被社交媒体吞噬的众多数字行为之一。

That whole world of blogging (exploratory, low-stakes, conversational, and assuming a readership of people who had bookmarked your URL and who read it on a desktop or laptop computer) is almost entirely gone now.

整个博客世界（探索性的、低风险的、对话式的、假设读者群是为你的 URL 添加了书签并在台式机或笔记本电脑上阅读它的人）现在几乎完全消失了。

My first two years writing Res Obscura in its blog format were great fun.

我以博客形式写《Res Obscura》的头两年非常有趣。

I began to develop an intellectual community, forming contacts with, for instance, the wonderful Public Domain Review (founded 2011 and still going strong).

我开始建立一个知识社区，与诸如精彩的公共领域评论（2011 年成立，至今仍然强劲）等机构建立了联系。

I linked to and was linked to by a range of other history bloggers who I saw as kindred spirits, some of whom seem to have disappeared ( BibliOdyssey ) others of whom have become well-known writers ( Lindsey Fitzharris ).

我与许多其他历史博主有过联系，我认为他们是志同道合的人，其中一些人似乎已经消失了（BibliOdyssey），另一些人已经成为著名作家（Lindsey Fitzharris）。

It was pretty addictive when a post went viral.

当一篇帖子像病毒一样传播时，人们会很容易上瘾。

In those halcyon days when written blog posts about obscure historical subjects were viable sources of viral content, you could end up getting covered in international media for, say, discovering a cat’s paw prints on a 15th century Croatian manuscript.

在那些宁静的日子里，有关晦涩历史主题的书面博客文章是病毒式内容的可行来源，你最终可能会因为在 15 世纪克罗地亚手稿上发现猫爪印而受到国际媒体的报道。

That spike in readership around 2018 was partially from a post about 17th century food that, unexpectedly, led to me speaking about snail water on New Zealand public radio .

2018 年左右读者人数激增的部分原因是一篇有关 17 世纪食物的帖子，出乎意料的是，这篇帖子让我在新西兰公共广播电台上谈论了蜗牛水。

But by then, I was starting to move on.

但到那时，我开始继续前进。

I was hard at work on my first book — the book I needed to write for tenure — and was becoming a bit dispirited by the increasingly click-bait nature of blogging, not to mention the tendency of social media to elevate toxic behavior and controversy over lovely and fascinating but totally uncontroversial things like the Croatian cat paw prints.

我正在努力写我的第一本书——我需要为终身教职而写的书——并且对博客日益增长的点击诱饵性质感到有点沮丧，更不用说社交媒体倾向于提升有毒行为和对克罗地亚猫爪印等可爱、迷人但完全没有争议的事物的争议。

I also (then and now) have no appetite for short-form video content, and still less for the type of history explainer videos — “here’s a two hour deep dive into why this movie is historically inaccurate” or “everything you need to know about such-and-such famous person” — that seem to do well on YouTube.

我（当时和现在）对短片内容没有兴趣，更不用说历史讲解视频类型了——“这是一个两小时的深入探讨为什么这部电影在历史上不准确”或“你需要了解的关于某某名人的一切”——这些视频似乎在 YouTube 上表现良好。

Switching over to a Substack newsletter, in the summer of 2023 , revived my interest in writing online.

2023 年夏天，我改用 Substack 时事通讯，重新燃起了我对在线写作的兴趣。

It felt like rejoining an intellectual community — not quite the same as the golden age of blogging in the 2000s, but something equally as lively, in a way that I don’t think quite gets enough credit in the 2020s.

这感觉就像重新加入了一个知识分子社区——与 2000 年代博客的黄金时代不太一样，但同样活跃，但我认为在 2020 年代并没有得到足够的认可。

From Weird Medieval Guys to Jillian Hess ’s Noted to Justin Smith-Ruiu ’s Fernando Pessoa-esque The Hinternet and the newsletters of well-known historians like David Bell ( French Reflections ), as well as the more general audience or politically oriented newsletters that still dig deep into historical topics (like John Ganz ’s Unpopular Front and Derek Thompson ’s newsletter ), I would say that Substack is now the most interesting place online for discussions not just of history, but of humanistic topics as a whole.

从《奇怪的中世纪家伙》到吉利安·赫斯的《Note》，再到贾斯汀·史密斯-鲁伊的《费尔南多·佩索阿式的The Hinternet》和大卫·贝尔等著名历史学家的时事通讯（《法国反思》），以及更广泛的受众或仍然深入挖掘历史话题的政治导向的时事通讯（如约翰·甘茨的《不受欢迎的阵线》和德里克·汤普森的时事通讯），我想说Substack 现在是网上最有趣的地方，不仅可以讨论历史，还可以讨论整个人文主题。

Needless to say, there’s also a ton of people writing about the intersection of AI, technology and contemporary society (of which I would single out AI Log , Ethan Mollick’s One Useful Thing , Dwarkesh Patel , and Steven Johnson ).

不用说，还有很多人在写关于人工智能、技术和当代社会的交叉点的文章（其中我会特别推荐《AI Log》、《Ethan Mollick’s One Useful Thing》、《Dwarkesh Patel》和《Steven Johnson》）。

So why have I kept writing Res Obscura through all the changes of the world — and of my own life and interests — since the summer of 2010?

那么，为什么自 2010 年夏天以来，我一直在经历世界以及我自己的生活和兴趣的所有变化而写《暗色》呢？

Simple: I love sharing things I find interesting, especially things which are not available elsewhere online.

很简单：我喜欢分享我觉得有趣的东西，尤其是那些在其他地方网上找不到的东西。

Most of my posts are written because I search for information on something and don’t find it.

我的大部分帖子都是因为我搜索某件事的信息而没有找到它而写的。

The niche nature of Res Obscura (from 17th century cocaine to Kinetoscopes to Henry James: the RPG ) is precisely why I enjoy writing it.

《暗色》（从 17 世纪的可卡因到电影放映机，再到亨利·詹姆斯：角色扮演游戏）的小众性质正是我喜欢写它的原因。

I am deeply grateful that 15 years and 8,300 subscribers later, I have a place online where I can share idiosyncratic knowledge and writing with an equally idiosyncratic group of readers.

我非常感激 15 年后，有了 8,300 名订阅者，我在网上有了一个可以与同样独特的读者群体分享独特知识和写作的地方。

Now here’s the inevitable part where I ask if you would be willing to support my continued work.

现在是不可避免的部分，我问你是否愿意支持我继续工作。

To that end, I have set up a special holiday discount valid until the end of December.

为此，我设置了一个特别的假期折扣，有效期至 12 月底。

Thank you for reading!

感谢您的阅读！

A detail of a trompe-l’œil “dome” by the Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna , Camera degli Sposi, Ducal Palace, Mantua, Italy.

文艺复兴时期画家安德烈亚·曼特尼亚 (Andrea Mantegna) 的错视画“圆顶”细节，位于意大利曼图亚公爵宫，Camera degli Sposi。

Featured in a 2011 Res Obscura post called “ The Art of Fooling the Eye .”

2011 年 Res Obscura 的一篇名为“愚弄眼睛的艺术”的文章中得到了专题报道。

Res Obscura is a reader-supported publication.

Res Obscura 是一本由读者支持的出版物。

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

要接收新帖子并支持我的工作，请考虑成为免费或付费订阅者。

I have a similar story.

我也有类似的故事。

I started with a blog in 2010, but over the years I shifted towards social media…

我于 2010 年开始使用博客，但多年来我转向社交媒体……

which I only recognised as a mistake three years ago.

三年前我才意识到这是一个错误。

That's when I started on Substack (first in Spanish, now also in English), and along with that, I also recover the interest in writing.

就在那时，我开始使用 Substack（最初是西班牙语，现在也有英语），与此同时，我也恢复了对写作的兴趣。

Keep up the good work.

继续做好工作。

You have one of the best publications I have come across on Substack.

你们拥有我在 Substack 上遇到的最好的出版物之一。

Still a huge fan.

仍然是一个巨大的粉丝。

Congratulations on 15 years!

恭喜您 15 周年！

This post made me nostalgic.

这篇文章让我怀念。