Happy Birthday, Blog!
My blog is now officially a teenager (yikes) in human years, which makes me more of an elderblogger, except I’m still a ways from 50. But now that I’ve reached this milestone of 13 years, how old would this site be in internet years?
On Quora, some say it’s the same as dog years (x7), some say x2, or square the number. If I were to use dog years my blog would be 91 today, which means it’s old enough to do anything and get away with it… smoke, trespass, speed, wear slippers and pajamas in the grocery store — why not? After 5,384 post titles, this blog has earned its stripes. I still cringe at some of the early vapid posts, particularly from 2002-2004, the same way I cringe at my school photos. But I would never delete those early posts, they’re snapshots in time. I started this blog when I was 30, in university and procrastinating on my essays. Little did I know what I’d be writing about in the 13 years since then.
If Only Blogs Could Talk (Like Humans)
And then, of course, there’s all the stuff I couldn’t write about, and wouldn’t write about. There are stories I can only tell in person, because they don’t belong on the internet. For every story I write here, there are dozens more I wished I could tell. As much as the internet is expanding and assisting and detailing our lives, it is not a medium best suited for human interaction. It facilitates, but it can be rather limiting in its ability to tell a story properly, even enriched with pictures and video.
You can travel vicariously through a blog, but it’s no real substitute for actual travel. Comment fields just aren’t the same as real discussions. I don’t receive many comments here, but I do receive more email and I value those more than comments, the same way I value one-on-one conversations more than group discussions.
Content Is Still King
The internet is an evolving technology and goes through as many fashion stages as apparel. And, just like fashion, those who chase the trends end up with a site that looks just like everybody else’s and cringe at those choices once they’re outdated. You can dress it up how you like, but content is still king.
I can’t tell you how many fancy travel blogs I encounter in my web wanderings that have the most superficial of content, pumped full of keywords and SEO. Sometimes I wonder if the writers even visited the location at all or were the words and photos scraped off of other blogs. When I see comments obviously generated from blog hops and other networks dedicated to building followers, it makes me quite cynical (and realistic) when it comes to the state of the blogosphere in general. People get very hung up on statistics — page views, rankings, popularity — and don’t bother with research, checking sources, spelling or grammar. Then there’s my personal pet peeve: writing posts that are antagonistic, contrarian, or just plain insulting with the sole purpose of making a post go viral. Nothing gets page views faster than controversy. Please don’t feed the trolls!
Learning To Ignore The Naysayers
I remember reading articles in the past that said blogging was dead, but you know what? I don’t care. I don’t pander to anyone, I have kept this space for myself to post freely. I have continued to blog through the boom of social networks and microblogging platforms like Tumblr and Twitter. I use them all, but my blog takes priority because I own my content here. One day those sites will be the victims of corporate mergers or acquistions or disappear altogether, but I’m still chugging along here with even more dedication than I had when I began. I can’t say that about anything else I do, except maybe photography.
On Being Consistent
But lets see if the numbers reflect my claim for consistency…
I’ve updated the Excel file to find that I’m only a few posts down from last year, which is encouraging since last year was the first time I stopped the decline in posts which started in 2009 and continued to 2013. Thing is, I have more pictures than ever I want to show but what slows me down isn’t the volume of pictures, it is this: I feel compelled to write about those pictures but writing is my major weakness. I mentioned this to a friend who was visiting recently and she was surprised to hear it.
“Really? But you’re prolific.”
Prolific is an illusion. Readers only see the end result, not what comes before. Ever watched someone churn out a book? The only people who know how long it takes writers to write are the people who live with them. I don’t call myself The Slowest Writer Ever™ for nothing, and my husband would likely agree. You would think I’d be faster at this after 13 years (I’ve exceeded my 10,000 hours!) but apparently it doesn’t work that way. Although it takes me approximately 10x longer than anyone to come up with the same amount of content, we are ultimately judged by the content than the speed so that’s what keeps me going.
5,384 posts (including this one); I’ve been trying to come up with original post titles since 2002!
Cheers to the blog for making it to that magic number 13!
… and THANK YOU FOR READING!
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