THE CULTURIST TURNS 15
August 1924. Washington, D.C. "Dancers, National American Ballet." Some really nice sashes here. Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. Image via Shorpy.
Today marks 15 years of running this blog. I thought I’d have a long and clever post prepared to mark this day, but I don’t.
But echoing Tina Roth Eisenberg’s post from September on swiss-miss.com, a blog she started 19 years ago, “I miss the innocence of the early blogging days.”
Text only version:
Let’s Bring the Blog-Roll Back by swssmiss, September 1, 2024
“I miss the innocence of the early blogging days. No trying to monetize your audience. No algorithms. No funnel talk. It was fun and playful. People were genuinely excited to share their weird obsessions and interests. I will forever try to recreate that corner of the internet.”
Wow, this post over on Threads struck a nerve. Haven’t gotten that many comments ever on Threads. So, let’s do it, let’s bring the good old blog-roll back. If you’re still tending to an online garden out of sheer joy of sharing, drop your link as a comment!
Blogging may sound very old fashioned to the current generation who predominantly use social media to share and connect. But so much of it is so fleeting, and for me it is the complete opposite of blogging. Maybe I should I refer to this blog as an ‘online journal’, would it make it sound less old fashioned?
When the blog turned 10, I wrote about how blogging has taken a back seat to social media, podcasting seems to be the new blogging and attention spans have been reduced.
Currently, having a Substack is the alternative to having a blog but not as open or accessible, TikTok has become even more dominant as a social media platform, podcasting is still a thing - but also a lot of it is utter cringe, and reduced attention spans has gotten even worse five years on.
Additionally, being online in general is no longer what it used to be, social media, especially Twitter (still refusing to call it by its other name). But I am still hanging out there because I still find it useful and amusing despite the maddening stuff. I know many who have moved to Bluesky, but I am still undecided about making that same move (I do have an account there but have not used it more than a year.).
The algorithm decides what you see and discover, Google has ruined its search function - a reminder to us all that not everything remains accessible online, and in the past few years there’s more and more ugly AI visuals and text.
Nevertheless, I’m still maintaining this website, or as Tina Roth Eisenberg said “tending to an online garden out of the sheer joy of sharing”. Alongside sharing a bit of joy, it is also a record of what I’ve been doing or thinking about. And for the past year its been hard not to think about the misery and despair caused by the ongoing genocide and collective punishment on Palestinian civilians, and I have used this space to share words and images to have a small record of this time in history.
When I looked back at my past “blogiversary” posts, I would lament on not being organised enough to plan a blog party to celebrate. Dear reader, I’m afraid to say it’s the same this year.
Maybe, just maybe, I will host a small gathering in January to celebrate. But I aim aiming to highlight posts from the past 15 years on the homepage over the next few months. Also, expect the usual end of year lists in the coming weeks.
For now I just want to say a very big thank you to every person that’s visited and keeps visiting, and here’s to many more years of blogging (or online journaling?).
One last thank you goes out to Shorpy.com which has been great resource for all the images I’ve used each year. Here’s a look at all 15.
