Bring Back Personal Blogging

From Monique Judge, writing for The Verge:

In the beginning, there were blogs, and they were the original social web. We built community. We found our people. We wrote personally. We wrote frequently. We self-policed, and we linked to each other so that newbies could discover new and good blogs.

The best blogs gave us a glimpse into the life of someone we “knew” online. Good storytelling, coupled with a lively discussion afterward, kept us coming back for more day after day.

I want to go back there.

We should all be in control of our own platforms. Owning your content and controlling your platform is essential, and having a personal blog is a great way to do that.

(So) buy that domain name. Carve your space out on the web. Tell your stories, build your community, and talk to your people. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t need to duplicate any space that already exists on the web — in fact, it shouldn’t. This is your creation. It’s your expression. It should reflect you.

Bring back personal blogging in 2023. We, as a web community, will be all that much better for it.

One of the best side-effects I’ve observed from the chaos surrounding various social media platforms in recent years is the return to personal blogging. Or, perhaps, it’s simply that I have been outside of mainstream social media’s orbit long enough to begin finding the excellent blogging community that has (in reality) been here all along. Regardless, I will continue to carve out my space on the web, and I encourage others to do so as well!