I mean, you can be cynical for whatever reasons, but I just think you'd be assuming (and participating in and perpetuating) a game Chad isn't playing.
He is undeniably "fucking around for clicks." When you don't want clicks, you don't cross-post to YouTube, BlueSky, LinkedIn, your blog, etc. Clearly a lot of effort went into making this announcement social media friendly and click-worthy. He has analytics on his blog to track how many clicks he gets.
Whether it's in a "shallow sense" or not is subjective and there's no way to really argue against that. Do I think he's karma-obsessed and drooling over engagement dashboards? No. And maybe that's what you mean.
But you have to be willfully naive to deny the irony in deploying numerous completely unnecessary layers of tech, over numerous social media channels, to let everyone know that you no longer want tech and social media in your life.
I agree with you, it's more that... it is performative in itself.
Is he? I realize your comment is 2 hours old at the time of my response, but go to his webpage now, and click through to Bluesky. Then do LinkedIn. Then Twitter. Those accounts all appear to have been nuked from orbit. The argument that someone's "fucking around for clicks" falls apart when there's nothing to click on.
If someone was a frequent blogger with a big following, I won't fault them all that much for saying, "I'm out," to their audience. It's easier to answer, "Where'd you go?" in a public fashion right up front than it is to, potentially, field that question in private more than you'd like to after you bail.
TFA was published a day ago, the corresponding YT video was published 3 months ago. He had cross posted the blog (not sure about the YT) across multiple social media channels in that time, up until an hour ago (or thereabouts) when he finally deleted his socials. That was the state of things when I wrote my original comments and follow-ups. So I stand by the assertion that he was clearly interested in promoting the content, at least initially.
Unfortunately I can't edit any of those comments any longer.
Seems way more seasoned in typing, than most typist of those days. And yet, he can't find the time or patience to retype the piece without typos as a final version?
I don't know the man and don't doubt his sincerity. I even agree with most of what he's saying. But it's pretty obvious imo that this is all somewhat performative.
People create art and write in various ways and they are free to do so. If he wants to announce to the world that he's leaving the Internet (which is more of a meaningful expression than doing it quietly, for sure) then he can be creative about it without it invalidating his purpose. He could have even posted a photo or a poem along with the message and I don't think that would make it less meaningful.
I would hope that creative expression doesn't die just because we now have tools that lets us express ourselves flawlessly, if we choose to use those tool.
Is about as fucking around for clicks as it gets