My digital artefact is an investigation into the concept of cosy. The project has changed a lot; from deciding to have a research-based approach centred around a blog, to a focus on gaming and community to now taking a broader approach. My DA has been slow to start, and there hasn’t been much content production due to personal and technical issues.
The more expansive focus on cosy has allowed my project to be antifragile, as I can explore niches and reuse content rather than having to scrap it when I change my mind. As the project has transformed, I’ve worked to utilise what I already created in newer iterations. For example, using my ghost PNGTuber as my new icon, expanding my blog options and reusing accounts.
A major component of this DA has been iteration and the importance of constantly evaluating my frame. While traditionally, my approach would be to come up with a concept, decide on the frame and change the project as needed to suit my selected frame – this semester I’ve been open to transforming my views. The shifting in my framework has come to represent several key learning moments, helping me to refine my project’s scope.
Integral to a DA is its social utility – and for a project to have a utility it first needs an audience to provide this utility to. Throughout the project I’ve struggled to narrow down my audience, I decided to first focus on the social utility I wanted to work towards – creating a safe, cosy place for people to relax and feel comfortable. But without a defined audience I’ve been stuck in a sort of paralysis, where I can’t create content properly as I don’t know who exactly I want to target. While I still don’t have a concrete audience, in the final few weeks I hope to use the process of iteration and reframing to narrow down my approach.
Audience engagement
A big personal discovery – and also an issue – with this DA is the fact that I often struggle to engage with my audience in long-term, meaningful ways. While I can create content, replying to comments, updates and other responses can put a toll on my mental health.
I’m working to adapt communications strategies that work for both me and my potential audience. While I thought discord communities would let me gain more insight into how cosy is created, instead I found I struggle to find the appropriate places to join conversation or have the time and focus to be online for large chunks of time.
In our peer review, it was suggested that I consider Reddit as a possible platform for research and engagement. While I have only made a few posts so far, I think the Reddit community will be more open to my disjointed approach. The discussion formatting of most posts I interact with makes it much easier for me to join in on and engage with the conversation.
Embracing imperfection
This is something I talk about a lot but still struggle with. When it comes to the things I make, I’ve always been a perfectionist, and it often has consequences when it comes to content production and project iteration. It took me several weeks to realise that I have hardware limitations leading to an inability to stream. Instead of getting a rough idea of all the software I could utilise, I wanted to perfect – or at least finalise – each section separately and then put it all together. If I made a rough outline of everything I needed and attempted to run the software initially, I would’ve realised these constraints much sooner.
I want to focus on the concept that any content is good content – that producing content allows me to better understand my project, audience and overall framework. This leads to my final discovery, the significance of yourself in your project.
Content creation for yourself
When you create content, you genuinely enjoy content creation becomes much easier. I always make my DAs about topics I am interested in, but simultaneously find myself struggling with that interest and often disliking it by the end of the project.
I’m working towards a paradigm shift in the way I view content creation. I want to share the work-in-progress – not only getting past my own reservations when it comes to sharing content but allowing for audience response and deeper insight into how my DA should evolve. I also want to push the boundaries of what a WordPress site can be, rather than focusing on one particular thing – be it blogging about a specific topic, sharing art or reviewing – I want to combine all of these things on a single platform.
To put it in my own terms, for the final weeks of this project, I will be choosing chaos. While I want to utilise audience feedback in the approaches I take, I also want to create varied content – making content I enjoy sharing with the world rather than the content I feel I must.
runaway towards the clouds with me 