I started writing in my blog back in 2006, the year that facebook was unleashed on the world!
Of course it took some time for the social media blitz to really get a grip, and for someone just getting the hang of navigating the online world, there seemed to be an abundance of interesting blogs and basic amateur websites to explore.
Memes probably existed but most of my online communication was far more engaged and interactive.
Exploring blogs related to specific topics or general themes put me in touch with networks of people I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to communicate with. When I found blogs of interest I could follow them in Google Reader and shape my reading preferences entirely according to what my favorite bloggers were writing about, I could choose easily which ones I wanted to look at regularly and those I just wanted to check in on from time to time.Then Google removed it's Reader... (Why?)
Back then the nature of the online space made it easy to engage in conversations with like minded people while feeling as though I was involved in a ‘real’ community. It was exciting, inspiring and inviting to those who wanted to share experiences and information in a more intimate and focused way.
Most of the blogs I subscribed to back then have been shut down as people either couldn’t keep up the writing or most likely moved their efforts across to the facebook, twitter, snapchat, Instagram universe. One by one the bloggers vacated the scene and very few enlisted to take their place. Now it seems blogs are the domain of professional writers, people wishing to promote some kind of product or hopeless diehards like me who can’t let go of the idea that there should be a place for self expression (online) outside of the plethora of re-shared meme’s and selfies managed by the algorithms of a master program and ‘pushed’ onto the reading space of all of our ‘friends’. FRIENDS! Are they frigging kidding me? I have attempted to relate to people on fb in a manner fitting of the title ‘friend’, it seems the courtesy’s and graces we used to afford to people under that title no longer apply. Although there remain a few great blogs I continue to read…
So I realized lately after a dissatisfying exchange of words on facebook, that regardless of lack of exposure to an audience on my blog, this is the place where I can continue to express my views regardless of whether I have an audience or not. If I’ve got something to say it would serve me best to put together a more thoughtful argument than facebook has time for and post it here, for the sake of my own sanity.
