Until I don't that is, but I've been thinking a lot lately about returning to blogging. The internet is a strange place right now, what with the way Twitter feels like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and I've been thinking about what sort of relationship I want with the internet, especially the social aspect of the internet.
Good-old fashioned blogging seemingly died with Google Reader, and everyone likes shorter, easier-to-consume content these days, tl;dr and all that, or else content aggregated in one place. You consume what the algorithms tells you to, and that's that. But it's meaningless and noisy and it's a game. You try to post the best (or most provocative) content you can and engage with others so they'll engage with you and you can rack up retweets and likes and followers. As if that matters, as if you can change someone's mind (as if anyone is online in good faith), as if that makes you someone, as if having strangers' attentions gives you value. How dystopian is that? (No, really, isn't that the premise of the Uglies spinoff?)
I miss our cozy little corner, okay? And I get that it's gone and we grew up and grew apart and we can never go back and be the same because the internet grew too. Sites come and go, and sometimes you move and sometimes you don't, you stay, and then you miss out and you realize how okay you are with not knowing every single thing that's happening in your ever-changing circle and outside it. There's something new to fill the void; maybe you miss it some days, but think about what you'd be giving up to have it back in your life and ask yourself if you even really care or if you just are caught up on the but what ifs. (Also I figure anything Taylor Swift posts to Instagram will make the news, so I don't need to be on Instagram.)
Leaving the internet completely feels strange, like my existence is tied to having an online presence. And yet, I cannot fathom posting to Twitter again or joining another social media site and going through the motions and pretending that people are interesting. The whole point of social media is to be social on this superficial level, and I am not a social person.
That brings me to blogging. All of social media feels like talking the void, even if someone is listening, but blogging feels less chaotic, more peaceful about it. Like maybe no one sees it but you've still put a meaningful, thoughtful piece of yourself out there, and doesn't that have some value? If I'm going to write about things that matter to me, I want to do it in my own little corner of the internet, not on a social media platform, where so many things turn into an argument, and I don't have the bandwidth for that, nor do I want to be the person.
So this feels like the compromise: a way to still be online without feeling like a zombie about the whole thing. We'll see how long it lasts.
