People approach blogging differently. Some stick with one platform or host forever. Others, like me, sometimes switch things up. So how did I get into this hobby, what twists and turns did I take? I’d love to say my start was in the 90s with a hand-coded site on GeoCities. But no. I began a little late.
In the bloginning
2005-2007
My first blog was circa 2005. Back then, Facebook was a new thing for college kids only; social media in general was nascent. I wanted a way to share my 3.2 megapixel pictures with extended family online since they lived far away. Flickr didn’t seem the best option, and I liked the idea of a rolling timeline or blog. So I joined Blogger, newly bought by Google; it was popular (and still works today).
I didn’t stick with my blog for long though. I don’t recall why, really. It might have been due to lack of interaction or feedback. I think it was just easier to email a few pics and words.
Blogospherical
2008-2009
A few years later, around 2008, I started writing for a church blog as a site contributor. Again, this was on Blogger. It, too, didn’t last long.
In 2009, I joined Facebook (for the first time), and shortly thereafter, I joined Twitter (for the first time). Social Media became mainstream, which is why many vanished from the blogosphere.
The blogging bug never left me though.
Irregular blog movements
2010-2016
I have a touch of vanity. The thought of someone liking my posts, thus liking me, is compelling. And I’m a thinker; introspection and reflection are habits. When the muse hits and my thoughts bubble over, I want an outlet. Long-form blog posts are still the best. I’m also a geek. So with enthusiasm, I started several blogs between 2010 and 2016.
I tried to focus on whatever niche I was into at the time: theology, Christian living, eReading, motorcycles and scooters, family life, photography, or minimalism. They all had the same basic style of a personal or hobby blog. Their other common trait - failure. Well, they went defunct by neglect. My focus would change like… “Squirrel!!”
Serious but not too serious
2017
Then it happened again — I really felt like blogging. Yet I couldn’t keep repeating history. After years of my blogs going defunct, I determined to avoid such fate. With good intentions in early 2017, I revisited Blogger to start afresh. But at the last minute, I switched to WordPress.com. And a few months later, my blogging came to an abrupt halt. Why? Debilitating anxiety attacks.
Long story short, at that point in my life, things were very stressful, with major life changes piling up, etc. The bottom fell out. I struggled with anxiety, requiring professional counseling, medication, and prayer. I had to cease and desist from anything that taxed my brain or triggered my stress.
Yet I didn’t give up.
Trying to stabilize and find whatever the new “norm” would be, I embraced the therapeutic practice of journaling. This helped me in a huge way. I poured anxious thoughts and feelings out of my head by writing them in a private journal.
The writing practice led me to also try blogging again publicly as a way to push through life. So I resumed my blog on WP in late 2017. Yet my blog went quiet again after a few months. Ugh.
Still, I wouldn’t quit.
A new bloginning
2018
In late 2018, I took concrete steps to ensure that THIS TIME I would succeed at blogging regularly. Even if I didn’t have a single reader. My only goal was to stick with it. Quality and quantity and frequency and style and length…all good things that ultimately didn’t matter much. I could blog about anything and everything, numerous topics, no niche. I just had to not stop.
It worked!
Life and adulting carried on, I slowly progressed past the crazy-bad anxiety — and I stuck with my blog, Jason Journals. My tagline was, “Mixed thoughts and topics.”
WordPressed
2022
In April 2022, WordPress pulled the rug out from under people with a radical and sudden plan/pricing change. It unmoored me. Unsettled, I ended up leaving WP and flipped back to Blogger! Nostalgia is sweet. Then in early 2023, I flopped over to Micro.blog, moving all my content. While nice, I returned to WP this summer, back “home.”
2023
So here I am — for now. WordPress.com has a lot of good things going for it, at least for me. But it also continues to evolve in uncomfortable ways. And once again, I feel a mild need to simplify the platform/host I’m on.
One of my bucket-list goals is to become proficient enough in HTML, CSS, and JS to code my own static site someday and maybe even develop blog themes. So far, it’s been fun to dabble, learning bits here and there.
I don’t know where I’ll go after WP; maybe I’ll stay put for the rest of my days. Wherever I am, though, I plan to keep blogging. Jason Journals is more than a personal blog now. It’s like an extension of myself. Because it’s a blog, it feels kind of permanent too, not ephemeral or generic like social media.
There seems to be some resurgence in blogging thanks to the demise of social media. Even the rise of federated social networks somewhat resembles the blogosphere of yore. The web itself is the social network, with loosely coupled sites and profiles of authentic and thoughtful people sharing themselves online. The personal internet still has a pulse, one which the soulless corporate internet never quite grasped.