I have a blog that's connected to my academic website. While my homepage gets some traffic from people googling papers, my blog gets much less. I post a few times each year, mostly about stuff I've been reading. I did have one post go viral-ish a few years ago (https://bcmullins.github.io/foreign-affairs-100/).
I was surprised to find that some workplace acquaintances and even students read my blog. A colleague out-of-the-blue messaged me about some python function I'd written (https://bcmullins.github.io/parsing-json-python/). A student asked about reading recommendations and how I choose books. So people you know IRL may be reading your stuff (or some of it) but just not mentioning it.
As another post mentioned, I feel much more pressure about my writing after learning that IRL people read it.
> A colleague out-of-the-blue messaged me about some python function I'd written
Just the other day a colleague at work was searching the web and eventually ended up in a blog post of mine. He was enthusiastic that he had "discovered" my blog. It was fun.
I was surprised to find that some workplace acquaintances and even students read my blog. A colleague out-of-the-blue messaged me about some python function I'd written (https://bcmullins.github.io/parsing-json-python/). A student asked about reading recommendations and how I choose books. So people you know IRL may be reading your stuff (or some of it) but just not mentioning it.
As another post mentioned, I feel much more pressure about my writing after learning that IRL people read it.