3rd August 2026

why do i have a blog, you may be asking? well, i've been mulling over the idea of "having a platform", courtesy of a prompt from yr girl and mine. you see, i am planning on soon entering a bootblacking contest¹ and she made the point that one of the things that matters for a bootblacking title is having platform to put your title on. i think she's right about this to an extent.

what is the point of a title? in a way it's kind of like electing a representative but through delegated democracy where the judges have been chosen to elect. except that it's more complex than that and the judges are delegated to by the contest organisers, not the community per se. but anyway, my point is that a title in my eyes is about getting a big stamp over your name that shows people you are willing to do the work, the community respect you, and you know what you're doing (at least a little). it marks you as a chosen ambassador. you go and represent your local community to the wider community across the country, and you go and represent your local community to other local groups adjacent to or interested in what you do. i expect to be travelling to rep glasgow at big leather events, and bootblacking at local trans surgery fundraisers for people who barely know about leather or bootblacking (i have already done this at a queer sports club fundraiser, it was an interesting experience!). a title puts a beacon over your head that says: come and ask me questions. i can speak to this practice and this community. that can be welcoming newcomers who don't know anyone, or it can be representing what you all do to the world.

in that sense, a platform is necessary, because people need to know about you somehow. counterpoint: i Fucking Hate social media, and i don't want to be the kind of titleholder who is on instagram. i feel like it's a platform that by design fosters envy and a sense of missing out. most of the time when i'm on instagram and i see some other leatherperson or bootblack doing cool shit, even ones I personally know, my first feeling is "that's so much cooler/better than anything i have going on". which is partly a personal feeling, but plenty of people have talked about instagram doing it this way. and as much as there is a practicality to needing to post on the place where everyone is, what kind of titleholder would i be if i capitulated to where things are right now rather than trying to represent what *i* believe in, and i believe that social media is actually, structurally harmful to our ability to be in community with eachother. as much as i really fucking want to win, if the condition of winning is building an instagram account full of posts and reels that people can be jealous of then i will have to find it within myself to lose.

so what other ways of doing this do i have? i organise enough stuff locally that i can just reach out to people. folks recognise me, especially trans folks. i might not be that talkative (and that's something i'm working on changing), but people see me around, and i think most people know someone who can contact me, even if they can't directly. but i want somewhere people can reach me or i can share where to find me and what i'm doing. and that's where the blog comes in. and this site. i mean it. i'll make a "upcoming gigs" page if necessary. i'll talk about events on here

now i do have instagram, and bluesky, and fetlife. and i will use those things in the way i've continued to use them. i post stories (mainly of my leatherwork or sharing local events) and i don't mind if local people can find me on there. i shitpost on bluesky, but never show my face. that one's mostly for my friends. fetlife is well, for the obvious. but i don't want to become an influencer. so this is my compromise. i'll start my own email newsletter if i need to and find a way to link it up to this or whatever. my point is, i'd rather invite other people into a different way of working and being in community than just give up back into an ecosystem that has brought me admittedly some good, but also a lot of alienation, insecurity, and negative comparison. let's at least try something new. and if i win and end up being the most disappointing titleholder of all time then i'll just admit that it's better suited to someone who's more social media savvy than i am. titles are not the only thing that matter, so i keep telling my stupid little goblin brain that is absolutely frothing at the mouth about how iabsolutelyfuckingnhavetowinorelse

so, that's what prompted me to make this blog. now you know. here's to, uh, blogging?

¹if you want to know how i'm feeling about competing for something again for the first time in years, you can read that here