Friday, May 01, 2015

Bloggish Musings

Well, here we are in May, and thus I am officially done with the second annual celebration -- or whatever it is -- of Blogs-A-Lot April. Once again, I got a small but surprising amount of satisfaction out of it, possibly just because taking the time to post something every day, even if it was only a sentence or two, gave some vague sense of structure to my life of crazy, ever-shifting schedules.

I was going to say, though, that this particular exercise got me to thinking, not so much about whether I should do the same thing next year, but about whether this blog should even still really be an active thing next year. Because whether people comment here or not -- and a big "hello!" both to those who do, and to those who read but comment to me offline or elsewhere instead -- it can feel embarrassingly like talking to myself in public. And, as a format for personal updates, stray thoughts, random links, and occasional cat pictures, the blog feels increasingly obsolete. Normal people these days do that stuff on Facebook, or Twitter. (Or Tumblr, maybe, especially for the younger set. But I have to admit, I don't really get Tumblr.) I've resisted joining Facebook and Twitter for various reasons, for years, but maybe, I was thinking, it might be time to do that, after all, and make people stop coming to me here. Probably only one or two people would miss it anyway, right?

And then, in the last few days, several people have left really entertaining comments, or told me in person that they enjoy my posts here and like to stop by occasionally to catch up, with the implication that Facebook wouldn't be remotely the same. Which made me feel good, and has prompted a surge of real affection for the ol' blog. So, who knows? Maybe I'll keep going. I've been here 13 years, a number that truly startles me. But maybe I'll hang out for another 13, until we're all just communicating telepathically with each other's brain implants.

6 comments:

  1. I think that Facebook is much more designed for social networking than it is for blogging. I opened a Facebook account some years ago, but discovered that I didn't care for it and now very rarely use the account. Twitter's limitation to 140 characters, though fine for brief updates, isn't suited to writing anything substantial. So I would vote that you carry on here.

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    1. I think, to be honest, I was sort of wondering how much people even want to read things that are "substantial" these days.

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    2. Even if that's true, which I doubt, the Twitter limit is set far lower than the minimum length above something could be termed substantial. If you went over to Twitter, you'd have to rename "Maximum Verbosity" as "Minimum Verbosity". :)

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    3. Ha! Yes, that is true.

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  2. Please keep posting here! (I can't be the only person not on Facebook or Twitter or... well, whatever else I don't understand and probably haven't even heard of, surely?)

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    1. Fear not! I have been convinced to keep it up, for the immediate future, at least.

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