The White Pube
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This week's post:
Grenfell: in the words of survivors
our book POOR ARTISTS ๐Ÿ‹ is out now!; north american release is nov 12!

an important bit of information imo! [UPDATED]

GDLP

**[FUN NEW UPDATES AT THE BOTTOM]**

do you know what an RSS feed is? did you know the white pube has one?

https://thewhitepube.co.uk/index.xml

i know it is easy to turn off when you don’t know what a thing is but I really want to spread this tiny 1 minute bit of information because i think it’s one of those old school internet things that current-school-internet should use more:

‘RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format.’ okay Boring wikipedia quote, your brain is turning off already, but BASICALLY it is an app you can download on your desktop or phone that is like an empty filing cabinet, and you can use that app to subscribe to the RSS feeds of different websites such as The White Pube which means any new posts on The White Pube go straight to your RSS reader. You could subscribe to your favourite magazine-style websites and news sites and it means that instead of opening a browser and opening a billion tabs to check all the new posts on those sites, you can open one app - an RSS reader - and have all those posts come to you, and they are simplified, it’s just the writing, none of the design fuss, just WORDS. like this:

the white pube

a bunch of posts on the white pube in an rss reader, just dark mode posts with simplified texts

bbc news

a bunch of BBC posts

reasons I like it:

  • As the white pube, hello, we have only ever known social media as the way to update people that we have a new text out. Unfortunately social media is terrible. If people aren’t on instagram or twitter, does that mean we lose them as readers? If we have readers who want to leave social media but they are sticking around because that’s where all the world’s updates come from, do they just have to stay?? No because RSS solves all of these problems. We can all be free! we can all make our own choices! I love it
  • all the content is simplified, it makes the experience of being + reading online feel much more straightforward, like it reduces the speed and chaos of timelines and feeds into one that I have made myself
  • I can see the exact order and timings of posts, instead of them appearing in a curated messy way
  • I only have to open the RSS reader to see everything, I don’t have to go all over the Internet (which is helpful because I forget which websites I even like)
  • you can click a button and have all updates in one feed, or keep them in their own separate files in your cabinet
  • The White Pube website is split into pages including /art /games /misc /blog and /podcast and you have to go between the pages to see the posts, but if you want to see an aggregated view of all the posts across those pages, you can use an RSS feeder to see them (as in the picture above) and personally i think i prefer that!

how do you do this? download an RSS feeder on your phone or desktop, and then google what your favourite websites' RSS links are, and then add those links to your RSS feeder so it knows where to pull updates from.

The BBC news RSS feed link looks like this: http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml

The White Pube’s looks like this: https://thewhitepube.co.uk/index.xml

there are many many more

I find current internet vibes very stressful; I find RSS very peaceful;; I like going on websites and seeing if they have an RSS feed and adding their link to my collection there you go, you know now

(๏พ‰โ—•ใƒฎโ—•)๏พ‰*:๏ฝฅ๏พŸโœง

UPDATE: October 3rd

I posted this blog post and got a surprisingly positive response, and i say surprise because i didn’t think people would engage with such a random internet thing? But here are some things I want to add based on comments from you lot, you lovely little nerds.

  1. You can use this website to convert NEWSLETTERS into rss feeds, what a fuckin revelation. I subscribe to a few newsletters and then never read them because my inbox is a harrowing place. I have just moved some of those newsletters, the ones that gave me guilty feelings for not reading them, over to my rss feeder. The instructions are there on Kill The Newsletter, but I found the ones on this website easier to follow - and don’t be intimidated, it’s like 2 steps

  2. ALL TUMBLR ACCOUNTS AUTOMATICALLY COME WITH RSS - - - the link you important just needs rss on the end of it, like: https://nameofyourtumblraccount.tumblr.com/rss

  3. a few people asked what RSS reader I used in the pictures, and it’s Fluent Reader, desktop app on mac. It’s very clean, i enjoy it. You can get RSS readers that are implemented into browsers too

  4. I remembered I have my own personal website outside of TWP and then i was like huh do I have RSS?? I followed the 1 minute instructions on this website and found my own RSS feed and i’m so happy about that

  5. all podcasts are RSS feeds with audio attached to them??? i didnt know that. but it means you can have podcasts coming directly into your reader

  6. someone recommended watching the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy about Aaron Swartz who was involved in the development of RSS

  1. some people asked what feeds i am subscribed to. Here is a screenshot of some of em:

screenshot of RSS urls

but I share this with the admission that I only just found out you can add tumblr feeds to RSS and now im gonna have to go and do that

I’ll come back with more updates as this convo progressed but i am personally psyched to see so many people interested. it feels worth taking a minute to understand it. really feels liberating and lighter to be online in this way