In recent times (by which I mean, like, the last few months, maybe half a year) I’ve been noticing that I’m spending more and more time on WordPress and reading blogs. I think I went through a phase where I just kept following more and more blogs. There used to only be a few that I’d read with any regularity, but I reckon I’ve discovered a lot of new blogs through comments on other blogs. (Often the thought process is something along the lines of “Hmm.. that person wrote a well thought-out comment, which is also (mostly) free from spelling or grammatical errors. Perhaps this person has an interesting blog…”)
I hardly even look at “Freshly Pressed” any more. After all, I have enough blogs to read already! My daily internet routine has become something like this: (1) quickly check emails, and quickly respond or send necessary emails; (2) quickly check Facebook for messages and notifications, and maybe browse my newsfeed in case anything like-worthy has happened; (3) read blogs. (Yeah, usually I’ll only check emails and FB once per day – or usually not at all for emails on week-ends – so these are not great ways to contact me for anything urgent/important.) Depending on my mood and what sort of posts people are publishing, I might spend the rest of the night on WP, or I might go off and do something else.
(NB: Although I have a Twitter account, it is not part of the routine, and any activity that occurs on Twitter is sporadic at best.)
I find this shift in routine kind of interesting because I don’t actually know anyone in “real life” who still maintains a blog and publishes in a vaguely consistent manner. I think a lot of friends from high school, and maybe at university as well, dabbled in blogging for a bit, but then eventually gave it up or forgot about it. The first blog I ever read (that I can recall) was created by a friend during high school (can’t remember what year… maybe grade 9?). I don’t even remember what platform/site she used, but I do remember talking to her about it, and how she actually had to explain to me what a blog was.
Over the many years that have passed between then and now, I can remember her changing her URL, blog title, theme, content, etc, etc many times (probably not quite as capriciously as I’m portraying here but still fairly often relative to most blogs, I reckon). At one stage she had a hiatus in blogging, and I remember being a bit sad about it. I mean, we still talked in real life, but I suppose there was something special about reading her uninhibited thoughts on her blog. I believe that it was she who inspired me to start my own blog – mostly as a place for me to rant, rave and ramble about whatever I wanted, to my heart’s content.
Back in those early days – even in the early days with WP (my blog started out on “Windows Live Spaces” or whatever it was called) – I didn’t read any blogs that were written by people who I didn’t personally know. Now, however, all of the blogs I read are written by people who I’ve never met in person (except one, but she doesn’t post very often). And while I know that a few of my “real life” friends still read my blog (even if only very occasionally – I still appreciate it), I know that the vast majority of my readers are overseas (thanks to helpful WP stats). The majority of blogs that I read are also written by overseas people. And although we will probably never meet – or maybe because we will never meet – I think it’s incredible that millions of people can share their stories with millions of others.
This post was actually supposed to be a quick, short-ish post to mention that I’ve added the “posts I like” widget to the side-bar… I’ve been seeing it on a lot of blogs I follow, and thought it was a great way to, well, share posts that I like. I might write more on this whole blogging business another day. Stay tuned!
pistachio conspiracy #63 