Nobody cares about your blog | Reasons to Maintain a Personal Blog
Nobody cares about your blog | Reasons to Maintain a Personal Blog
Nobody cares about your blog, but you should keep writing!
cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/3628322
The author started a blog but has considered stopping due to lack of readership. Though few may read the blog, writing it can serve as notes for the future, help release and clarify ideas, and give a sense of freedom. Even if the ideas are not original, sharing one's personal view can enrich them. Ultimately, the author decides to publish the post regardless of who may read it.
Do you maintain a blog? Are you getting value out of the practice?
I maintain one. I think of it more as a personal journal.
I semi-maintain one and use it for a similar reason. I mainly use to document one I'm doing with my Homelab. I also write mini reviews on some games I finish. But I write it as if it's for an audience, even though no one actually reads it (though anyone can).
I probably only post like 3x a year since I'm super lazy with my Homelab and only finish a handful of games each year.
I had a blog many years ago. The culture around it was very curious and I wish I remembered it well. It was a bunch of blogs with links to all the other blogs that they would recommend and interacted with. Maybe blogs weren't contaminated by the thought we should be entertaining others all the time. Lurkers wasn't even a concept.
If someone still wants to do this, more power to them. I definitely think there is value in just writing for yourself and putting it out there.
But then again, the internet has changed so much even in the last few years. I used to blog but gave it up.
Journaling offers me a similar outlet, and I dont have to bother with web hosting on a website that reminds me every time I look that nobody else is reading my stuff. (At least for me.)
But I recognize this is just my experience. I know it isnt like this for everyone. If it still helps someone find meaning, I say go for it.
I started blogging back in 2000 on a hand-edited HTML site. Since that time I've been through four CMSes (Pivot, PivotX, Bolt, and now Pelican). Sometimes I post about my life. Sometimes I post pictures. Sometimes I write about a project I've been working on. Sometimes I post a description and solution for a problem I've been having. Sometimes I feel a need to write about a funny or stupid thing that happened to me.
I guess the reason that I still blog these days is because I want to run a blog like the ones I used to love way back when. Not fancy. Not commercial. Not trying to make money. Just the sort of thing I wished I'd find in a web search for something like "will bettas hunt and kill tardigrades in the same tank?"
I'm not trying to be Someone. I just want my little piece of Net that I can publish on.
I loved having a personal web site when I was a teenager… but then the internet became all about commerce and I sorta jumped on that bandwagon. I got fed up a few months back and needed a creative outlet so I launched a new personal web site, part of that being a blog.
I love writing for it! It's different from journaling because someone else could find it. I know the feeling of discovering someone else's personal blog, and it's incredible. I love knowing that I'm writing and creating things that could do that for others.
I have no idea if anyone else is reading and, if so, how many people are reading. I don't have any analytics set up, and that's intentional. I don't want to track people, and I don't ever want to make a decision about my web site based on that data.
The old web was magical. There was something special about discovering a new web site and knowing that it only existed because someone's passion was too much to contain and had to spill out onto the internet. That's what I'm trying to recreate with my site.
I really liked this read! I blog, and I like my blog, but sometimes get stressed out because I feel like nobody's reading it (I've removed all analytics on purpose because I used to get obsessed with them). Blogging for the simple act of blogging, and not for engagement, is the best!
I've sent people short little emails about how much I enjoy their sites, and I imagine that's far better "engagement" than any sort of comment or like.
I've been writing notes about how to do certain things in some programming languages, how to do certain things on the command line, etc. and I have all this in Obsidian for my own reference. I started a blog a few months back (a static website generator) and I don't expect many people to come across it as the things I write about are pretty niche. But it's something that I can put time into now so when future me needs to reference something, it's just there (rather than haphazard notes that I will need to piece together).
I currently journal and think an anonymous blog would be a neat idea, but I’ve never actually blogged.
Do any of you have a recommendation? Medium? Self host? I think the ability to search, reference, and download a copy would be ideal.
Relevant to the discussion? https://youtu.be/9Bqf35f0HB8
I'm always here for an on topic song!