Why I Made This Site

I used to post my stories on a writing platform and I would watch them immediately become part of someone else’s interface. Engagement metrics on the side, a “similar stories” section underneath it, a comment section that seemed designed to start arguments. The writing was still there, technically. But it wasn’t really mine to present anymore.

That bothered me.

The Platform Problem

Writing platforms aren’t really built for writers. They’re built to keep people on the site as long as possible, and your writing is one of the tools they use to do that. The algorithm decides who sees your work based on what keeps users engaged, not on what you actually made or why.

There’s a McLuhan quote about how the medium is the message, meaning the platform you publish on changes what the work actually communicates. A story sitting inside a feed full of notifications and recommended content isn’t the same as a story on a plain page. The context bleeds in whether you want it to or not.

Why I Built Melonoxia

I built melonoxia.com because I wanted a place where the writing could just exist without all of that around it. No metrics, no recommendations, no distractions. Just the work.

It’s a pretty simple site. I’m not a developer, but simple was always the point. I’ve taken two web design classes, but that’s the extent of my experience. The blog is for posts like this one, things that don’t fit neatly into a story but are worth writing down anyway.

The Audience Issue

The obvious downside is that nobody is going to stumble onto this site through an algorithm. If you’re reading this, you either knew about it already or followed a link from somewhere. That’s a much smaller potential audience than any platform would offer.

But I think I’m okay with that. An audience of people who actually went looking for the site feels more real to me than a number on a dashboard. And it means I can write things that are quieter or weirder without worrying about whether they’ll perform well.

That’s why this place exists. Thanks for being here.