Here I go again

I am starting a blog again. Nothing makes you more hip than a brand new blog in 2020. I think blogs are past their prime, but I also like writing them, so I will. Platforms may come and go, but provided I don’t fail to keep the software up to date, a blog will hang around, like my www.triplefstudio.com/yokoso blog from the time I lived in Japan. Shoot, I actually wrote my first web pages in HTML by hand. They look like it as well, but they still work (I’m contemplating a much needed update).

Why a blog, though? I enjoy writing, I enjoy photography, and I enjoy the intersection between technology and design. So while I’ll probably use a commercial theme for this (which I am), I still have some control over customization, and am 100% responsible for the content. Also, I’ve found that writing a blog entry typically is aimed at a particular reader in the end. That reader is me. I’ve often revisited my other blogs as a way of remembering events in the past that otherwise might have slowly faded from memory. It’s a diary of sorts, but with pictures and links (that will eventually fail to link properly).

I know that a web presence is not that cool these days. There are so many platforms out there. Why not become a “visual storyteller” on Instagram? Well, for one, the term “visual storyteller” is nauseating. I could be clever on TikTok. Lots of people do it and create great content. Each of those relies on a platform that may or may not be around in the future. Remember MySpace? Hey, where are all your Flickr pictures (for a really long form discussion, check this out? Remember that really cool Tumblr page you had? Tumblr killed porn and the platform died. Vine was cool, too. Sure, vlogging still seems to be going strong, and there are definitely amusing vlogs out there, but that’s not me. I rarely even watch a news story on the web. I’ll read it. 

I’d rather think about what I want to write, write it, edit it, research about what I wrote, share that research, and so on.

Maybe blogging is the “mid form” article these days. It could be a long form article, but that is more in the newspaper and magazine realm. I don’t intend it to be what you see pass as news on so many websites though, about three sentences of content and then a bunch of linked Tweets.