A Digital Home
Yesterday, in my post on Blogging Expectations, I mentioned the concept of a website as a virtual home, and wanted to expand on it.
I like having a singular place on the internet that I can point people to and say “This is Justin’s virtual home. You want to know what Justin is thinking, or what’s going on? Start here!” And I hope that’s been reflected in my blogging and my site design…
Justin Vollmer
As I’m sure any longtime reader of this site could have guessed by now, the concept of a blog or website as a virtual home is not a new idea, and I’m definitely not the first to use that phrasing. I’ve seen it in multiple places over the years, but in recent weeks it showed up on a few different blogs I follow, and I wanted to elaborate on the topic a bit more.
When I was first introduced to the internet in the early 2000s, none of the current social media platforms existed, and the primary way people communicated online was via email and instant messaging. A few people I knew used message boards or websites via the likes of Geocities, but having your own website was an anomaly. However, fairly early on my cousin began explaining basic HTML and CSS to me, and I quickly put together a simple site (which I was very proud of, though in retrospect it was nothing spectacular).
Fast forward to my high school and college years, and Myspace and (later) Facebook were becoming popular. I had accounts on both over the years, but looking back, neither ever felt quite right to me. Sure, I enjoyed being able to communicate with friends and share status updates, but the pages were never mine. They were someone else’s space that I was renting, or occupying, like a town square, which matches Naz’s interpretation:
A platform or network doesn’t allow for much configuration. The town square isn’t owned by you.
By the mid-2010s I was beginning to tire of social media platforms as my primary online presence, and once again began working on hosting my own site (through various platforms - if you want to see the full history, check out my 10-Year Anniversary post). But it honestly wasn’t until about 6 years into having my own website that I started to make it mine, and another couple of years after that before I started really using my website as my home base. As Shellsharks put it:
A website, your own personal website, is … a digital home, on the web. … You can design it how you want, add rooms (pages), invite friends over, paint the walls, hang some art, share your recipes, get some much-needed peace and quiet, anything!
And if I’m being honest… I’m still learning what all I can choose to do with a personal website! I’m slowly figuring out blogging, and I’m also getting better about my website being the place from which I publish my thoughts and ideas (see my POSSE page for more on this concept). But, just like with a physical house, I can always continue to improve it. I can build new rooms (pages, subdomains), I can create more posts (books in this analogy?), and I can change the design (wallpaper? art? paint?). My own imagination is really my only limit!
So… final thoughts? Go create your own home on the internet! Buy a domain name (a plot of land), and start small, and make your site whatever you want it to be!