The Death Of The Personal Blog
I initially started writing this post a couple of weeks ago after a long night out with friends and family. It was pretty late and while much merriment and happiness was had, the dark intrusive thoughts managed to find their way crawling back into my skull. I've been slowly but surely losing my mind and going insane over the past couple of weeks (months? years? who knows?).
I've done quite a bit since starting this blog back in January. I've had so much fun posting on here and enjoying my other blogs. It's incredible that I'm able to share what I wish with the world and yet that's where the fault lies.
A little bit ago I wrote a manifesto to document some of my thoughts about life on the internet as I personally know it. While the manifesto may shift and change over time, there are a couple of things that I know will remain true for the rest of my life.
- An effort needs to be made to make every piece of media as freely available and widely available as possible.
- The tools in which to create this media should also be as widely and freely available as possible.
- All media and tools should be preserved in some way, shape, or form so that they may be experienced by anyone who wishes to experience them.
My first point on making information as freely and widely available as possible is what this post is about. The Internet used to be a place where I could load up any website I wanted and not have to wade through 500 pop-ups about how you promise not to sell my data and how these cookies are essential for my viewing experience. It used to be a place where I could read a lovely little piece about some news that I was actually interested in and not have to worry about having to pay for a monthly subscription just to read a single page for a website I visit maybe once a month. The Internet was a place where I could read a paragraph and not have to worry if it was some garbage generated by a robot masquerading as a human.
If you ever see any of my websites with some kind of advertisement pop-up, a subscription page, a pop-up asking about cookies, or some other nonsense other than my own written words, then something has gone horribly wrong.
My Internet is a place of passion. A place where I'm free to express myself, write what I want to write, and post what I want to post. I don't care about SEO, I don't care about views or hits, I don't care if no one ever stumbles across this post that I decided to write at Why-Am-I-Up o'clock. This is for me.
And that's one thing I kind of hate about what the Internet has become. When I was writing my manifesto, a big part of it was just exploring and browsing through Neocities. Neocities is a website where people make and host their own websites out of passion and joy. It harkens back to a time when the Internet was in its infancy and things were done for the love of the craft.
But that also leads to the problem. Every website hosted on Neocities is unique. It's made by someone who is passionate but it can be anything from a normal 90's era blog, to modern art, fan pages for obscure media, choose your own adventure games, and so much more. It's beautiful seeing what people come up with. And yet what I want is to experience just some simple posts of what's happening in someone's life. Tell me about what you had for lunch one day, show me a cool thing you saw on a walk, just give me something. It's hard to dig through the noise of everything, but it's such a wonderful place that I can't be mad. They're a reflection of who the webmaster is and it's an absolute joy reading some of the stuff hosted there, but because every site is so unique, it makes it hard to navigate and find what you're looking for.
Every time I try to find a small independently run blog, it falls into one of 4 categories:
- It's paywalled in some shape or form, or is littered with ads.
- This one is a given.
- It's got thousands of followers if not hundreds of thousands.
- While this isn't a bad thing, it feels less genuine? As much as I would love to write for the rest of my life. I'm doing this for myself, no one else. I don't intend to make a cent off of my writings. This is out of passion. If you, dear reader, get a single glimmer of happiness out of seeing this word put on this page, then that's a bonus.
- It's computer-generated nonsense.
- If you're not going to put any effort into an article, post, or whatever you want to call it. I will not put any effort into reading it.
- It's sponsored or is trying to sell me something.
- While there isn't anything wrong with this per-say, it once again feels like all that you're doing this for is money. As long as like maybe half of your articles aren't trying to sell me a new mattress or food service and are written from the heart I'll read it. Hell, if you try to sell me on some product that one guy makes in his downtime between working on his full-time job and hanging out with his family, I'll buy 10.
There are probably a few more, but these are the big ones.
It's so hard to just find a website built by someone who just genuinely enjoys creating and posting their thoughts or media to the world, but that's the joy of it. When you stumble across a gem of a website like that, you can't help but fall in love with it.
I'm supremely fed up with what the internet has turned me into. Scrolling aimlessly through social media reading garbage from one account to the next. I hate every second of it and yet, the one post out of a few dozen that feels like it comes from a real person is what keeps me there. It's a beautifully destructive dance that only aims to further me down this spiraling rabbit hole of a place that I once loved.
The most fun I've had over the past few days hanging out on this place that was once an escape from reality has been just talking to real human beings on the other side of the screen. It's easy to forget that someone exists there on the other end, especially with the fact that there soon might not be a real person there.
That human element of communicating with an actual human being is something that we're built to crave and it's one of the most beautiful things in the world. I hate that I have to fight for this cause, but I will lead it if I must. It feels as if the world is actively trying to strip this away from us and I don't know why.
I've started making more and more of an effort to reach out to people who I haven't spoken to in a while. Reaching out to people who were once great friends, or people who still are amazing friends that have just drifted a tiny bit too far. It's astounding to see what some people are up to nowadays and I've had so much fun just casually emailing a friend who I last spoke to when I was in elementary school. It's refreshing stripping communication down to the basics, without all of the noise.
While I do love the little jokes and memes that pop up on social media sites like Twitter and Reddit, there can sometimes be a huge disconnect with interactions on a post. It's incredibly hard to get to know a person for who they truly are on any social media platform for a variety of reasons. Many people try and paint a picture of the most idealistic version of themselves, while others just post content they find elsewhere on the internet. I feel like a personal blog is one of the few places where you can truly get to know someone.
While I have a few blogs, one dedicated to music, and one dedicated to photography, this site is for about anything and everything. More recently I've been posting about my day-to-day. There are many sites dedicated to a singular thing, be it movies, or television shows, I wanted this site to incorporate all of that. It's a reflection of who I am, and while it's not as personalized/customized as those you can find on Neocities, it's a site meant to be very user-friendly and readable. This website is what I'm looking for when I want a personal blog and it's so hard to find these out in the wild. If someone finds this site out there, I do hope that if you're looking for such a blog, this one fits that need.
Much like my manifesto, I'll leave you with the same mantra.
Be A Real Person