First Post
Welcome.
I've decided to start blogging again.
In 2013 I started writing a blog quite regularly. I was in a 'dead-end' job at the time and I felt that I needed to look into other avenues for income, so I started blogging on Blogger with the vision to eventually make money from it by adding Adsense ads. In 2014 I started my career in IT and in 2015 I felt that running a blog somewhat conflicted with my 'real' job, so I outright deleted the blog.
The blog was focused around things that I hated. The gimmick was that every post title began with 'I hate...'; the idea being that this simple titling would show up in search results for people typing the same thing. Clever, right? I was aware enough at the time that focusing around hate seemed a bit negative so I themed the page with bright colours as some sort of ironic juxtaposition.
The downside to this 'I hate' gimmick was that it was very difficult to post about anything that wasn't negative or critical without breaking the strict title format, so I started another blog for general thoughts, which saw a lot less activity from me.
I've been considering starting the blog up again for a while to give me some sort of outlet for ideas, thoughts and frustrations. Initially my instinct was just to re-start a blog with the same core idea, but 'hate' these days carries different connotations to 'hate' on the Internet back then. In 2013 it felt a bit more quaint, more obviously a joke. Now it feels like there is enough hate in the world and especially on the Internet that I don't think a 'hate' themed blog would sit quite the same. At least it doesn't feel right to me.
I've sat on this idea for a while, considering what to call the blog, whether I want to monetise it and so on - but I don't want it to feel like a chore or a second job. Additionally I've become increasingly disillusioned with the modern Internet. I'm trying to decrease my reliance on Google, so that scratches off Blogger as a platform, and with that goes the easy monetisation.
As well as swapping Google for other search engines I'm trying to ween myself off Reddit. It's the same thing every day. Comment threads are the same jokes again and again. I long for the excitement of the old Internet; finding blogs and websites that interest me and becoming a repeat visitor, a fan of someone's writings in particular. Reddit doesn't really support that. Often I find myself just reading the comments and never even consuming the linked articles.
Hackernews recently directed me to a blog here on Bearblog and I felt the strike of inspiration. Here is a blogging platform that reminds me of the Internet that I miss so much. No adverts, no infinite scroll, no heavy theming, just pages of human-typed comment, authentic and raw. My main reservation is around the lack of comments as I really wanted to inspire discussions and get involved with feedback on my posts but I have seen a couple of Bearblogs using an external third party platform for this, so I have an option for the future.
So here I am with my little plot of Bearblog land. Posts here will cover various topics, whatever I want to rant about or discuss, with a strong leaning towards tech, media, internet, music, and nostalgia for the past. I expect posts weekly - I'll try and queue things up