Back in 2005 I was very active in the whole myspace/friendster/blogger/livejournal era of the internet. And I do admit that I had a lot of emo things to say, some of which am I admittedly embarrassed to write about. But there were some blog posts which I was just damn proud enough to show off or maybe publish them in a book or something. I knew those were special because of the amount of comments I would get or the number of discussions they would start. And when they were brought into real life conversation I felt like freakin King Midas with the golden touch. I thought everyone loved me for it.
After graduation I stopped. I didn’t have the heart to do it anymore. And there was a reason why, several actually.
One: Life was really good
After graduation I was really lucky. Still am. Yea there were some crummy months crammed in the past three years, but as a whole these have been the best years of my life. I don’t want to jinx them by listing them, but let’s just say it’s been tits up for a while. I felt bad for a lot of people coming out of college that couldn’t find jobs, were having breakups, or family issues and they would post their issues on myspace/facebook. I didn’t want to be the jerk with sunshine coming out of ass spreading the joy of how good it was to be me and posting right after those guys. I didn’t want to come off like that guy. (I hate gloater douchebag assholes; especially ones that get bottle service at clubs)
Two: Ego Boost
I was scared blogging every time. I was pretty concerned with how I would sound or come off after each sentence of a post. My primary audience were class mates I had in High School and the biggest fear driving me was failing to show them that I am not the same person I was back in those days. I was considered funny yea, but I wanted to be viewed as daring, creative, clever, witty, mischievous, and deep. All these qualities I lacked at the time. I’ve been perfecting each one since then. And it all started with the blogs. Every liked post, or comment, or text boosted my confidence in what I could say and could not say. The blog was a window into my life that anyone could enjoy from the comfort of their chair. And I reveled in it. The Myspace blog was especially helpful. Not only could I link my flickr account and stumble it, I could see stats per post and who exactly was viewing them. It was like a marketing review for my confidence. I learned from all of this, and took my new sense of dashing to my everyday routine. In turn blogging ‘s purpose was diminished. It served its purpose as a venting tool.
Three: People are Just Rude
Eventually, as my high school mates got older, I came across people with opposing views. Up until 9/11, I thought everyone I knew was a Democrat. (Side Note–I’m pretty sure I’m a closet Republican) For instance, when I blogged about war or gay marriage, I would get many malicious comments from surprising conservatives. Infighting ensued, and that’s not what I wanted to happen. Blogging was about my thoughts and open invitations to anyone willing to contribute positive solutions. But No, it always ended up black and white. I can’t say I am innocent for doing the same thing; I remember yelling at someone for being an A’s fan instead of a Giant’s Fan. I just wanted everyone to get along, and with every biased opinion came controversy that wasn’t worth the time invested in the blog. So I started keeping things to myself. And worse, splitting my thoughts to 3 separate blogs. Each one was devoted to a type of content that was only shared among people that took no offense to what I was think-typing that day. Mostly people who could tell when I was joking or not. But it was never cool to express that you blogged, and invite folks over. Still ain’t.
Four: Nobody Cares to Read
Actually that should read, “Nobody cares to read for longer than 140 Characters.” In the Twitter age, it was growing more difficult keeping the attention of ADHD internet stalkers surfers. (I would be surprised to find anyone who reads this far into this blog) The rule is true for all types of media and entertainment though. If it doesn’t catch your attention in 5 seconds, it becomes increasingly less important to you. Its gotten to the point where you see a block of text you run away like chubby kids from a carrot. Which then leads into the next bullet point. Point number…
Five: Escalation
To compensate for the dip in reading attention span, the subject matter themselves had to become more and more crazier and or insane. And my blog posts did get dicey and adventurous a few times. But there was a point when I realized that I was getting into drama just to have a driving emotional force to blog. I found that image of myself repulsive. That’s when I called it quits.
Six: Time Suck to $ Ratio
This ratio was like 50 to 1. In between college classes and on weekends, I would spend writing. Once midterms were up, I had a lot of free time to focus on writing–blogging especially. I think the longest one was the Forza vs Gran Turismo Blog which still gets hits from google. That blog was edited so many times over the course of 5 months. I never published a blog until I found the right music, photo, or quote to accompany it. So I would sit on it until I thought it was worth sharing. On average it took me about 2-3 weeks to write a fully conceived blog. I eventually collected a stockpile of draft blogs of underdeveloped thoughts and blurbs, most of which will never see the light of day-some I hope to return to. After graduation I traveled a lot. I soon thought that instead of wasting my time blogging to a very niche set of people I should utilize my time into other parts my life. So I learned how to do many different things at a rapid pace.
TheKicker
I wasn’t excited about blogging anymore. Not even mundane writings were interesting to me. I said everything I wanted to say. And it was hard to continue. But in retrospect, I do miss it. The thrill I mean. And that’s why I am doing this now. This time I do it for me. Not for anyone else. Sure it would be nice if someone popped in for a quick look-see once in a while, but now there’s no pressure. I want to read these posts 15 years from now to see what I was like. And probably have a good laugh at a naive 30-something me. Can’t wait to get there. Here’s a nod to the time capsule blog.
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