So, What's New?
Mar. 23rd, 2021 06:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherIt seems as though I have been blogging publicly on the internet for twenty years. I mean, it doesn't seem like it to me, but the calendar insists, so I guess it's true.
If you went back into my archive, the first official entry was listed as March 24, 2001. But that was posted at 1:33am. So my anniversary spans two days, sort of.
Twenty years. Two decades. One score.
It's as good a time as any to consider what the process has been, what I may have learned and what it might mean.
As anyone who has followed me knows, I began blogging on LiveJournal, back when they were an American company. Then, like now, I was working on a book. And then, like now, I wasn't sure anyone besides me would care about or even see anything I posted here. But that was okay, then, because back in 2001, I had been keeping personal diaries for a few years. I was used to being my only reader.
And it's okay, now, because I am cognizant of our circumstances.
But the fact is, writers need an audience, to motivate the writing, to engage the reader. And blogging meant interaction, feedback, conversation. Writing is a lonely art. Painters typically have a model or a landscape. Musicians have their music. A writer has the words and the page or screen.
My timing brought me many opportunities to try writing styles I had never considered before, and to improve the ones I already had. During this time, I got to be a fictionalized version of a talk show host, then I became a real one, myself. I began as a non-entity, then I met a bunch of fascinating people from many different places, even meeting many in their natural habitats. I got to compete in a writing "reality show" and nearly won!
The blog craze took off and soon everyone started writing, and hundreds of people were following. But as with every fad, people soon dropped it for The Next Thing. In this case, either to the shorter form of Twitter or the next evolution of internet communication - vlogging.
There is still something to say using this kind of platform, but honestly, most of the masses aren't checking it. In fact, of those people who are still blogging, many have been somewhat scattered or scuttled, on different platforms, blogging or not. I moved because of my aversion to a blog platform being run from a foreign land, with no apparent administrators.
How has this been twenty years??
The facts are these. When I began, George W. Bush was in his second full month as president. Today, Joe Biden is in his second full month as president. In some ways life feels similar, in others, more complacent, and in still others, more dangerous.
Have we, as a society, gotten any smarter during these two hundred and forty months?
The thought is in a single word. COMMUNICATION.
Communication is a big reason why I wanted to blog. I wanted to hear from other people. I wanted to read their thoughts. I wanted honest feedback, to get a sense of what worked.
But during this era, especially this most recent five years or so, it seems like we are not communicating effectively. We talk but don't listen. Our opinions are considered sacred. We don't have communities so much. And the platforms that are most popular have moved from words, to pictures, like flickr, Instagram and snapchat and onto video, like YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. Not a lot of talking or listening there.
And there is the issue of life getting in the way. Responsibility is something that takes you away from trivial pursuits. Where are those carefree days of Spring, 2001?
This isn't really a lament. But I guess I miss the me that could crank out entries consistently and not feel there was other stuff on the internet that cut into that time, and that my friends who also wrote were right there for me to read.
I think the ultimate lesson is we should do what we like. Don't worry about an audience when it comes to this, because if there is some sort of audience, she, he or they will find you, when the time is right. Or you will make your way, based on doing those things.
I haven't given up on this blog. But the elements that made it attractive at the turn of the millennium are mostly gone. I guess that is the part I lament.
I hope I can find new elements to make it work. There's a lot we still need to discuss.
My final comment in that first real entry is appropriate to state again, so I will leave you with that:
Feel free to ask me questions, I'll try my best to answer whatever ones you have. I hope you'll find the accounts of this adventure enjoyable! I'll try to keep you entertained.
But really, I'll mostly try to keep ME entertained, for the previously stated reasons.
Here's to the first twenty years of this blog... And here's to the NEXT twenty!
If you went back into my archive, the first official entry was listed as March 24, 2001. But that was posted at 1:33am. So my anniversary spans two days, sort of.
Twenty years. Two decades. One score.
It's as good a time as any to consider what the process has been, what I may have learned and what it might mean.
As anyone who has followed me knows, I began blogging on LiveJournal, back when they were an American company. Then, like now, I was working on a book. And then, like now, I wasn't sure anyone besides me would care about or even see anything I posted here. But that was okay, then, because back in 2001, I had been keeping personal diaries for a few years. I was used to being my only reader.
And it's okay, now, because I am cognizant of our circumstances.
But the fact is, writers need an audience, to motivate the writing, to engage the reader. And blogging meant interaction, feedback, conversation. Writing is a lonely art. Painters typically have a model or a landscape. Musicians have their music. A writer has the words and the page or screen.
My timing brought me many opportunities to try writing styles I had never considered before, and to improve the ones I already had. During this time, I got to be a fictionalized version of a talk show host, then I became a real one, myself. I began as a non-entity, then I met a bunch of fascinating people from many different places, even meeting many in their natural habitats. I got to compete in a writing "reality show" and nearly won!
The blog craze took off and soon everyone started writing, and hundreds of people were following. But as with every fad, people soon dropped it for The Next Thing. In this case, either to the shorter form of Twitter or the next evolution of internet communication - vlogging.
There is still something to say using this kind of platform, but honestly, most of the masses aren't checking it. In fact, of those people who are still blogging, many have been somewhat scattered or scuttled, on different platforms, blogging or not. I moved because of my aversion to a blog platform being run from a foreign land, with no apparent administrators.
How has this been twenty years??
The facts are these. When I began, George W. Bush was in his second full month as president. Today, Joe Biden is in his second full month as president. In some ways life feels similar, in others, more complacent, and in still others, more dangerous.
Have we, as a society, gotten any smarter during these two hundred and forty months?
The thought is in a single word. COMMUNICATION.
Communication is a big reason why I wanted to blog. I wanted to hear from other people. I wanted to read their thoughts. I wanted honest feedback, to get a sense of what worked.
But during this era, especially this most recent five years or so, it seems like we are not communicating effectively. We talk but don't listen. Our opinions are considered sacred. We don't have communities so much. And the platforms that are most popular have moved from words, to pictures, like flickr, Instagram and snapchat and onto video, like YouTube, Twitch and TikTok. Not a lot of talking or listening there.
And there is the issue of life getting in the way. Responsibility is something that takes you away from trivial pursuits. Where are those carefree days of Spring, 2001?
This isn't really a lament. But I guess I miss the me that could crank out entries consistently and not feel there was other stuff on the internet that cut into that time, and that my friends who also wrote were right there for me to read.
I think the ultimate lesson is we should do what we like. Don't worry about an audience when it comes to this, because if there is some sort of audience, she, he or they will find you, when the time is right. Or you will make your way, based on doing those things.
I haven't given up on this blog. But the elements that made it attractive at the turn of the millennium are mostly gone. I guess that is the part I lament.
I hope I can find new elements to make it work. There's a lot we still need to discuss.
My final comment in that first real entry is appropriate to state again, so I will leave you with that:
Feel free to ask me questions, I'll try my best to answer whatever ones you have. I hope you'll find the accounts of this adventure enjoyable! I'll try to keep you entertained.
But really, I'll mostly try to keep ME entertained, for the previously stated reasons.
Here's to the first twenty years of this blog... And here's to the NEXT twenty!