18 Comments

Taking your musings even further leads to Freak Atlas. I'm not sure that's preferable to either Hopeful Monsters or the original, which is at least unique and intriguingly baroque.

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I for one prefer Hopeful Monsters. Your current name makes you out to be a medieval cartography buff with a sub interest in heraldric beast. I was a smidge dissapointed at reading your good work, finding none of that.

Of note, the concept phrased as a 'hopeful monster' is very common in plants. Inducing polyploidy is the basis of cultivar breeding in many ornamentals.

Also something about human chromosome count being the result of an improbable splicing of codes. A chance event like "the small planet Theaia hitting Earth and spinning into our moon" improbable. 'We' were once hopefull monsters.

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Yeah, not actually writing about cartography is one of the reasons I have been considering a change — I really like old map aesthetics but I never have anything substantive to say about them

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My main issue with Atlas of Wonders and Monsters is that I can never seem to remember it. When I need to find your blog again (for example, on a new device), I usually end up typing keywords like "Etienne monster Substack" into Google. It doesn’t help that the URL is "etiennefd" instead of something like "AtlasBlablabla." This also complicates things when I recommend your blog to others; I usually end up saying, "Atlas of... something — I’ll send you the link" (and most of the time, forgetting to actually send it).

Admittedly, Hopeful Monsters feels more generic in its structure, but there might be a good reason why that type of naming dominates the blog naming game: it’s far easier to remember. Also, I quite like it.

An alternative solution could be to have a long name, but with initials that are easy to remember. A great example of this is ACOUP. I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember the full name of ACOUP without the blog just under my eyes, but it’s really easy to remember "ACOUP," and it’s easy to talk about it (I say“ACOUPE” in French), and the URL is simply ACOUP.blog. Atlas of Monsters and Wonders doesn’t have all these nice properties ("AMW" can’t be pronounced as a word and feels like a too-common combination to easily remember).

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Yeah that has been on my mind! My partner also can't remember the order of the words. I've

been suspecting that this is hurting sharing and growth, so thanks for showing some evidence of that! I would also like to switch to a custom domain soon but atlasofwondersandmonsters.com is waaay too awkward. hopefulmonsters.com isn't available but I could use another extension.

In theory the acronym could be AoWaM or AWaM but that sounds incredibly silly

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Atlas of Hopeful Monsters?

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This does roll off the tongue better than the current but doesn't solve the issue of being too long!

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If we can present versions of Frankenstein that show sympathy for “the monster” or tell the story (stories?) of Godzilla that give as glimpse of their issues, why not? Great title for a number of the reasons you cite.

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Me, I prefer the original name - it suggests an exploration of differences and edge cases and unexpected “stuff” that hopeful monsters doesn’t. The old name has more “scope”.

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Hopeful monsters is a cool name

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Ok but I am honestly obsessed with “Hopeful Monsters!” It is EXACTLY what you write about!!!!!!!! And so self explanatory! And you can still include the atlas picture as your bio image to really bring it home. And all the rest of this in your about page.

I’m for it!

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I am so easily swayed, now I'm thinking I might actually change it :P

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Both are good. You can't go wrong. But if you want something shorter it totally works!

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Well you COULD keep the name but add an asterisk. Then down near the end where you ask for subscribers put the footnote. *Hopeful. Works thus on two levels.

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I kind of really like the idea of footnotes but it's probably literally one of the worst branding strategies!

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why did we stop naming books like that? These kinds of covers always make me curious.

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Good question actually! Somehow it seems obvious that shorter snappy titles are better and yet when I think about it it's not that obvious

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I'd cast my vote for Atlas of Wonders and Monsters, personally. It's one of those titles which works very well, but only in the specific context of being a title. Read it as though you're about to open up an old, dusty book, or unfurl a scroll, and it feels right. It only feels clunky once you remove it from that context, describing it in casual conversation to other people that weren't born centuries in the past. Given that most people interact with the Atlas first and foremost as a title, I'd say you should keep it. That unique feel of history and discovery is tough to come by.

Plus, if you abbreviate it, is sounds like two people socking each other: Ao! WaM!

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