The difference between my blog posts and essays

I’ve already written about this before, so forgive me for treading over old grounds. But this is more a reminder for myself than a public explanation.

Blog posts are timely — they largely rely on context from events around that time. As of now, some of my posts reference my anime taste in 2021, the 2021 MAT, an English essay I was really upset about having to write, a track meet, USAMO 2022, and MAST’s indefinite hiatus.¹ This doesn’t necessarily apply for really stupid stuff, but hey, a man’s got to shitpost.

Essays are more timeless and usually don’t need the context of a specific event to be understood. That’s why To parents: stop emailing me ultimately became an essay even though it doesn’t feel like one. In retrospect, maybe these posts about the distinction between my blog and essays should be in the essays section too.²

I don’t make this distinction for tech posts because all tech posts become obsolete over time, though the rate of obsolescence differs (for instance, I along with the rest of the world stopped caring about Gemini, but the morally correct way to make a static website will likely remain the same for the next decade at least).