Re(blog, tweet, toot, skoot, skeеt, post)

2 min read Original article ↗

Have you noticed the similar terms used for sharing someone else's content with attribution from your own account? Reblogging was the original term for “blogging” another user's content, first developed by project “reBlog” and popularized by Tumblr. Remember that “blog” is a truncation of “weblog” (... should it have been ’blog to capture the shortening?)

Anyway, here's a railroad diagram of all the different words I could think of:

re blog t wee oo sk ee oo t post boost

Tweet was coined for Twitter, a “micro-blogging” platform, so retweets were what reblogging was called on that platform. That naming has since changed, but wouldn't you know it: tweets used to be known as “twits”. Given Twitters owner that name makes more sense now than ever.

“Toots” are an elephant-themed “tweet” for Mastodon, with “boost” being the official term. “Skoot” was initially proposed for Bluesky, but cleverer folks suggested “skeеt”, much to Jay's dismay (stop trying to make skoot happen).

Now you see less “platform-specific” terminology being thrown around, like “post” and “repost”. Personally, I'm not a fan: check your posts at the door, we're goin’ ‘bloggin’! 🏄︎

I and many other blogs publish a “blogroll”, or a list of other blogs and pages that we've “reblogged” to our own website. If you're interested, give those a read and discover something new by surfing the web like we did in the 90s.

Wow, you made it to the end!