Blogs And Internet Changes

Thursday, February 20, 2025 - 5:15 PM

I mentioned earlier I been re-reading Abbey Kumquatwriter's blog, and it has me thinking about how the prevalence of blogs kinda just fell off. And I kinda have a theory that it was due to the increased use of smartphones.

Cuz blogs kinda suck to read on the small screen. The navigation's just a little bit worse, the text size isn't always conducive to reading (and I've read SO MANY ebooks and fanfics with terrible, small text on my phone). Chaos, both times I've gone on my archive binges through Abbey's blog I started on my phone and moved to a laptop, where the site was designed to live.

I almost hadn't noticed how much my own screen use has changed over the years. Like. I knew I ended up using a shitload of Twitter née Xitter. I knew I was on Tumblr and Youtube an uncomfortable amount. And all of those, plus the fact that they've been filling up my spare moments between--places where daydreaming, sketching, or scribbling down thoughts...or even reading a few snatches of whatever book I was buried in used to live--lend themselves to cell phone screens. We're always carrying them, after all. Chaos, I've still done my old book habits on my phone. Just, yanno, either ebook or fanfic. Occasionally the odd web-based original fiction--whatever I could find up my particular alley (lots and lots of TF stories and ponyplay). But instead of reading those things chained to my laptop, they were stuck in my hand.

And that's not bad. I've been leaning on those strategies to de-fang my anxiety for as long as I've accepted that I have anxiety. I love sometimes being able to derail a panic attack.

But also. What am I losing in not having those quiet moments, anymore? How much writing have I missed out on? How many fun ideas? How much drawing? Sometimes good things come from boredom. Loathe as I am to accept it.

I really do think we lost a lot moving from blogs to the current layout of the internet. Like, even apart from "Fuck everything belonging to about 3 websites" and the capitalist hellscape of modern times leading to Everything Ever being all about Monetization. Appease the Advertisers, you Content Jockeys. We can throw you away. Wait, where are you going? HAh. There's nowhere for you to go, anyway.

But I seriously love reading people's experiences. It was through reading random blogs I stumbled on that I first realized I might be trans (ah, the aughts). A few years later (2009 to be exact), when I actually accepted I was trans, it was through reading blogs that I put together my understanding of gender, transition, and what to expect. I rebuilt myself through the example of others' experiences. And I really truly wouldn't know where to start on a similar journey today. I'm sure I'd find something, but it'd be so buried and walled off by corporations with something to sell.

And yeah, there was also the cultural pressure. After all. For awhile, "Everyone had a blog," /disdain. So having a blog became cringe. But fuck that, You're mean and that's worse.