I have a list of half-finished blog posts sitting on my blogger homepage. None of them have even made it to a full first draft. I am well aware that it has been over a year since my last post. And, good golly gosh what a year it has been. It would take an entire book to cover all of it.
But there's a reason I have so many failed attempts sitting in my drafts. And the reason is that blogging isn't what it used to be, because the entire internet is now a blog. Back in the days of Web 2.0, right when websites were just beginning to be interactive, the ability for an average person who was not a qualified expert to write about a topic and publish it online was totally new and fascinating. When blogging came about, it was a novel idea that anyone could share their thoughts online.
These days, there are no shortage of ways to share thoughts online. For instance, if I woke up one morning feeling really strongly that pigs reserve the right to have access to public showers (what with the lack of sweat glands, and all) I could choose from a dozen different platforms on which to plant my soapbox. I could make an Instagram post, or start an Instagram Live about it. I could make a Twitter thread, write a longwinded Facebook post, make a YouTube video. If I was feeling especially dramatic I could make a Snapchat story of all black backgrounds with words typed over it about the injustice being done to swine-kind by denying them public shower facilities. All this, without even making my own website; which, by the way, is not hard to do these days.
Now I don't often feel particularly passionate about the rights of the world's pigs, but there are other things I tend to have strong opinions about. But so does everyone else in the world, and they have access to the same plethora of platforms I do. And what do we do on those platforms? We create a flood of opinions on all topics, large and small, whether other people want to hear them or not. No longer do I need a formal blog to talk about issues. And increasingly I find myself not wanting to add to all the senseless noise.
This even extends past hot topics and the current news cycle. If I feel like talking about what's happening in my life, it usually goes straight to Instagram or Facebook. For many of my everyday musings, I've cut out the middle man and just written it in my journal.
These days, a blog has to have a niche. You have to be a mommy blogger, or a food blogger, or a Pig Rights Activism blogger. You have to do giveaways, and have beautiful pictures where everything looks effortlessly beautiful, even though you're open and vulnerable about how life isn't always easy. That's just not who I am.
I'm not sure what this means for the life of my blog. Maybe it's time to hang up the apron, so to speak, and move on. But hey, at least now I've posted in the 2018 calendar year.
-Lisa
