The Case For Old-School Blogging – Nothing and Everything

Back in early summer, I chucked in the idea of being an online business manager. I had been in a depressed spiral and suffered a miscarriage, and we knew some changes would be coming to my husband’s job that made a simple decision for me – I had to get a “paycheck” job. You know, one with a regular paycheck, and benefits, and something that didn’t make me feel like I was juggling everything on Earth all at once.

Main problem was, I still had two children I needed to be able to take care of, which meant the easiest way to get a job was with the local school district – and that’s how I ended up as a high school paraprofessional.

I’ve been enjoying in, but holy cow, sometimes people say things that make me feel old. When a music class didn’t know who Bob Dylan was, for example. But I’m taking my experience as a good thing, because as I was figuring out what to do with my website, I remembered the ancient days of the Internet (back when we still capitalized it). Let’s hop in my handy-dandy time machine and go back, back, back, to the halcyon days of 2003…

Back when no one knew what a smart phone was, there was a new trend emerging from the Internet. People were using websites to build these things called “web logs,” or “blogs” for short. They would use these blogs as a way to talk about their life, as a way to connect with others, as a way to put random things out into the world. There would be “blog rolls” and Google Friend Connect and Google Reader (I’m still mad they discontinued that). And you would only know what the blogger shared with you. It was a way to get a look at someone else’s life – almost voyeuristic.

Along came social media and search engine optimization, and blogs started shifting in content; no longer were they peeks into someone’s life, now they were about “serving the reader” or getting those juicy keywords. Monetize! Fill them with affiliate links! Tell people about yourself on social media, not your blog!

As someone who started in the early days of social media, I remember when Facebook was a thing you would poke people with, write on their “walls,” make a status that always started “(Your name) is…”, join a random group comprised of people you probably knew from college (remember, Facebook started as college only – you needed a .edu email address to join). But slowly, the behemoths began to grow. Technology advanced and everyone had a camera now. Instagram was a thing and we all shared pictures of what we were eating.

But the monster grew, and grew, and we became slaves to The Algorithm. No longer was a single picture of your lunch good enough – you needed a carousel showing you kicked back, enjoying life in a way meant to inspire envy! You needed a Reel! Don’t forget trending audio!

And on the way, we’ve seen social media get less personal (or sometimes too personal), blogs become websites meant to serve a specific audience (or niche), and a million voices crying out – “OPTIMIZE YOUR POSTS!”

I’M SO SICK OF IT.

In a world of fakeness, curated content, AI, bots – I want to bring authenticity back. I want realness. I want to make actual connections again. And I thought, “You know what? I have a perfectly good website just sitting there, doing nothing…”

So. I’m bringing back old-fashioned blogging (okay, not singlehandedly, there has been a movement to do it). It goes well with my ethos anyway. I’ll cover that in a different post.

What am I going to write about? At a guess – minimalism, simple living, ADHD, parenting, being a full-time working mom, the constant rush of life. I don’t know. Whatever I darn well feel like.