Something else I just thought of.

About a decade ago, I had a friend who was pretty active in academia. He also had a popular blog that covered some scientific topics related to his areas of interest..

I told him to be careful about the blog as that could hurt him academically, since any contact with us horrible laypeople was frowned upon in his world.

He scoffed at me and told me that I was being ridiculous, and that surely no one cared.

Well, all of a few weeks later his advisor called him in and told my friend that he had concerns that his blog indicated he wasn’t serious about his research work, and that if he wanted to pursue anything worthwhile in academia the blog should be shuttered and not worked on anymore.

Well, my friend being nearly as stubborn as I am didn’t shut down the blog (at least not right then) and chose not to continue in academia, though I am quite sure he was smarter than about 99% of the people in his department. (Considering that he passed a high-level quantum mechanics course with flying colors while being drunk and high nearly all the time, pretty sure I am right about that.)