How blogs used to be

I came across a blog that was linked from Twitter, and it really reminds me of what blogs were like before Fakebook became popular. It's called Random Thoughts from an Info Junkie by David Eppley, and what strikes me is how personal it seems [update: it seems to be a pop culture list now, so it's changed]. I've been reading blogs for several years (mine is going to be 10 years old next year), so I remember when blogs were the way people communicated with each other, discussed issues, shared feelings, and even became friends.

Then social media became more mainstream, and people started sharing more there. I can understand why, because you get a more immediate response, you have a closed system of friends, and essentially a captive, engaged audience. Uninformed "analysts" claim that social media has made blogs obsolete, but I disagree because information can be shared in different ways online.

But what's emerged are a lot of informational blogs, blogs built for business, marketing, and other pragmatic functions, and it seems like it's becoming harder to find the more organic, honest, and non-commercial blogs.

I sort of miss those blog-dominant days because a network grew that allowed a variety of voices and styles to be read outside the mainstream media. It came to a point where I stopped reading some established columnists because their observations seemed inane, and they seemed arrogant. I remember the "media elite" dissing blogs and other online expression, and I even wrote a post about it around seven years ago. So as they hunkered down in judgement of "us", I alternatively found lots of great writing and thoughts from people who had a passion to express themselves but hadn't had a vehicle before.

Even I started posting at Fakebook more than here (as you can see from the dwindling post numbers over the years), but it sort of backfired. I assumed Fakebook was a briefer version of blogs, thus thought there was nothing weird about posting my feelings and struggles about challenging pursuits. But when someone said I appeared unhappy and some others showed concern that I was posting such stuff online, I looked around and realized the bloggy aesthetic had morphed into a shallow, vain expression that sets out to impress rather than share. I didn't think my FB posts were a big deal and not that revealing or pitiful, either, but I wasn't successfully conforming to the environment the FB bosses had created (as described in the book I read), so I seemed "unhappy", that "something was wrong."

So yes, count me as someone who's sort of lamenting the loss of the blog world as it used to be, though I'm sure those blogs can still be found in a few corners of the Web.