does your blog spark joy?
I started with blogspot while friends from stumbleupon schooled me on HTML. I copied everything onto Wordpress which automatically duplicated my posts to Tumblr. It was fun. Stumbleupon was my favorite platform. Besides having a diverse and international crowd, there was a chat, a forum, and even a music player so that stumblers may play your customized playlist while perusing your blog. And then the format was changed. Everyone was told to copy and migrate their blogs to somewhere different. And stumbleupon became an ugly version of Pinterest. The end of an era came.
We had personalized our blogs and taught coding to each other. We complimented and reached out when someone did something really cool to their blog. One particular stumbler took my profile pic and gave it a literal twist.
It was his unique way of saying hello. He did something special to everyone's profile photo that he was following.
It was a bloody day when our blogs were killed off. We now gather in a Facebook private group to reminisce the good ole blogging days.
Can you imagine steemit calling it quits, telling you that your blog and posts as you know it will be snuffed out of existence? I am happy to find a community here on Steemit. I'm slowly making friends. Hello, hello, sweet people!
The blockchain has a permanence that I appreciate. Steemit is alive and kicking yet there seems to be a cemetery of dead blogs. It is a sad thing to see a forsaken or forgotten blog. It's like seeing a discarded diary.
I recently went through my friend's follower list. It was only 30 people. Of the 30, only 3 were active; myself included. She said she only does a follow for follow exchange. I'm not sure about the advantages of following bots or re-steemers. Those accounts tend to run out of inspiration and their reputation scores backpedal from the gifted 25. I saw one today whose reputation score had plummeted to NEGATIVE FOUR!
Is your blog doomed to expire and join the dead? Not if your blog sparks joy. Would you re-read your own posts? If you get some pleasure in revisiting an old post, you will endure. You are your most important follower.
Having browsed through a multitude of blogs, it's become a game that I predict if a blog is dead before it fully loads. Some blog names seem to invite it's suicidal death. Other blogs were created for too narrow a niche that the subject eventually suffocated its writer out of the game. Everything is memorialized on the blockchain but it doesn't need to be a permanent death.
Maybe don't throw away your blog, maybe Marie Kondo your mindset. Make modifications. Fold your words and photos differently in an organized and uniform manner that makes it easy to visit, re-visit, and play with your blog. Wear it and rock it like a favorite hat.
Just some thoughts. I hope your blog sparks joy.
JNET
Yes, your posts do spark joy. I enjoy reading your musings on the little quirks that make up your life, from vehicle issues (I smile at how you love your car) to stories of your students and so much more. I think it is your presentation. In a world filled with so much narcissism, anger and entitlement your sharing is refreshingly absent of such things.
Yes, it does make the soul cry when one of the foundations we cherished proves its impermanence. I had a lot of pictures and emails from my old AOL days years ago, and hadn't logged in for years. A couple years ago I decided to see what was up with AOL and logged in only to find they had emptied my mailbox of years of treasured things I had saved. Irreplaceable things. Lesson learned, another scar for the heart, lol.
As for your friend in the negatives, someone here must have objected to what they were posting (there isn't always a good reason for this either) and they had enough SP to drive the rep down there. There are only a few who are still active from my circle from when I joined, and we mostly drifted apart as our voices appealed to different circles. I still check on them from time to time, some still in my feed even. Despite the differences in our interests I still have good wishes for them and if I have an extra upvote will toss it their way.
Glad you have decided to stick it out, and hope this year is the one that sees your account explode in popularity.
Thank you always for your kind words. I'm happy to know sharing my world is a refreshing break from the wild world we currently live in. While the world grows markedly darker and people jaded, skeptic and tired, it is my hope and intention that what I write and compose here lifts the human spirit. we are all spiritual beings dealing with the human experience.
Sadly, the human experience can twist us out of shape. I've had enough heartbreaking experience that I'm dead and gone in a parallel universe. In this world that we share, I'm fighting for my life and I'm rooting for everyone else to win their personal victories that in turn lifts everyone.
Thx for sharing about AOL. I'm truly sorry for your loss. I've not checked my AOL in years and now made peace with it after you shared that they've emptied everything. I hope blockchain has more permanence. In a throw away, disposable society, it would be a nice feature!
I plan to stick it out here. I will continue to look forward to your hellos and making more friends and followers. I'd like steemit to prevail and plan to watch and experience its growth and evolutions. The last hardfork was good. There are less scammers but I need to wait on my resource credits to grow before being able to do anything. The wait is worth it though in exchange for an authentic experience. The scammers littered the steemit environment. Yay to less litter!
Here's to the journey, @jnetsworld, is happily toddling along, just a bit over a year, reputation score is 46.5 and I enjoy my friendship with @practicalthought. You've made my steemit experience less daunting. Thank you!
J
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by JNET from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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