Remember when the blogging community was thriving with great (or not) writing, fun & occasionally stupid memes, interaction with others, even bitter rivalries?
Much like television these days, with 500 channels and countless streaming options, blogging has become overwhelmed and drowned by other social media platforms. MySpace came and went (thank God). Google + or circle or whatever, also history. But Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and other sites seem to have drawn most bloggers away.
We’re scattered. Like large families who find themselves vast distances from each other, or maybe more like large herds of deer or other animals, the blogosphere bloomed and now has thinned.
I think one of the reasons so many people began to rely on other platforms is how commercialized or commoditized a lot of blogs became. It wasn’t so much ads on sidebars; it was more like people who had once told stories turned to writing paid reviews, or basically blogged solely for the purpose of income. It took a lot of the joy out of cruising blogs.
On Facebook, well, we could just connect on a realer level. Then Facebook started to “fix” what wasn’t broken, alienating users. You either loved the changes, hated the changes, or just rode them out because it was easier to keep track of family and friends on one site as opposed to going through dozens of websites. Twitter? You could build a variety of niche communities — or none — and cruise through for as long as you wanted. The brevity of tweets made for quick-ish reads and quick-ish replies.
Neither Facebook nor Twitter is perfect. Then again, neither was blogging when it was at its peak. But, at the very least, blogs were where so many people became friends, where people sometimes fell in love, where some found new careers, and/or where some discovered parts of themselves they’d lost or never even knew existed.
I suppose it’s inevitable that the blogosphere would collapse or implode implode or whatever you want to call it. Once bloggers abandoned realness for money, the blogosphere changed. It was as if someone plopped strip mall after strip mall between neighbors.
I’ve considered — more than once — just closing up shop. I mean, there are so few readers stopping by that it seems silly to keep going. However, while I’m not the most consistent blogger, I still find myself glad I have a place to write and post photos and interact with the few people who come by to check in with me. Y’all know who you are.
My domain name was up for renewal recently and I had to make a decision as to whether or not I should even bother. After some consideration, I decided to renew. Oddly enough, Go Daddy’s system decided I needed a two year renewal and I couldn’t get the system to let me renew for just one, so I’ll keep on for at least two more years. After that, who knows?
I’m sad so many of the people I met because of blogging have disappeared. I miss them. I miss what this community used to accomplish when called to action, whether in response to disaster or to raise money for military veterans and their families or raise money for breast cancer research. We were powerful once. As a community, we did some fantastic work and I miss that. But that’s over now and we all get to decide where we as individuals fit in or even if we want to fit in somewhere. Me? I’ll keep on keepin’ on until I run out of steam.
