I recently read Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What it's Becoming, and Why it Matters The book covers the early history of the format from the mid-to-late 90's up to the late 2000's. I was certainly one of the millions of people that caught the blogging bug when it reached critical mass around the mid 2000's. I had one with Blogger for a bit and then switched to WordPress.com. Like millions of people, I started many and abandoned many as well.
Going through the book was a nostalgia trip. The book covers only a handful of the blogs and authors of that period, but with the exception of some of the political blogs mentioned, I used to read most of them. Like many bloggers during that period, I was also an RSS Feed addict and I added everything to Google Reader. Like everything. It was bad.
It's interesting to see that while people aren't using blog platforms like WordPress as much today, people are still web logging their thoughts. They're just using other platforms that aren't necessarily tied to the 'reverse-chronological' format and the mode of communication isn't primarily the written word.
That said, there's something that's definitely different about the old-school personal blog when it's well written. A blog post doesn't have to be a 5,000 word essay with the quality of something published on The Atlantic, but there's something different about the 'throw away' content that platforms like Twitter, Instagram, or Tik Tok encourage. Even the best Twitter thread still feels like 'throw away' content to me. I just find it harder, as a maker and as a consumer in these platforms, to feel as connected with myself or to other people as well as I do when writing my own blog or reading someone's blog.
Reading the book reminded me why I have kept this blog and why I want to keep it going. I'll probably always struggle with posting more consistently, but this is my own space on the web where I get to figure out what I want to say.