So, you want to start a blog. That’s great! Really! I can tell you from my personal experience that they’re fun, exciting, and challenging.
There are a few things to consider first, though – in my humble opinion.
I started my first blog so long ago, there wasn’t even a word for it yet. Therefore, technically you could debate if it really was a “blog” since the term wouldn’t be coined for a few more years, but whatever. It fits the description of a blog, so that’s what I will be retroactively calling it.
In reality – it was an old GeoCities website where I would post whatever the heck I felt like posting because that’s what GeoCities was all about. The internet was relatively new (and very primitive by today’s standards) and so many people wanted to leave their mark on it.
I was dealing with some major (as in life-changing) issues at the time, and I discovered that posting somewhat anonymously on the internet and letting people react to it was weirdly therapeutic. And then the comments started rolling in. (By “comments” I meant people sending me private messages or emails, but whatever.)
Yes, some of the messages weren’t exactly friendly – others were downright hostile. It did amaze me to discover the number of people who felt it was acceptable to remind me that I was going to spend eternity burning in the deepest depths of hell for being gay. Then there was the knobhead who sent me a death threat because I did not believe that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was like the Best Film of All Time.
See, even back in those days, the internet sometimes brought out the worst in people.
But, at the same time, it also brought out some of the best.
One of the first people who sent me a message was an older lady I’ll call Susan because that sounds more like a name than “OK_City_Mom” which is how I knew her. Anyway, Susan was in her fifties, was a mother to several children, the eldest of whom had just informed the family that he was gay and had just been diagnosed with AIDS. Susan and her husband had freaked out, she said a bunch of things she quickly came to regret, but by then the damage was done. She wanted some advice on how to talk to her son. (She also wanted to know if I knew her son, who lived a couple states away, as if all gay people somehow know who all other gay people in the world are … sigh.)
I responded back to her with some generic advice. She replied to that and at some point, we had become something akin to informal pen pals. We were still exchanging emails ten years later when I learned that Susan had passed away. She had told me about a year before that she’d been diagnosed with Cancer, although I was under the impression that she was responding well to the treatments, so it did catch me a little off guard. Still – it somehow felt like one of my closest friends had gone.
Eventually, GeoCities started to go downhill. It was clear the end was near, so I quit my site before I went down with the ship.
I can’t say that I fully blame the people who ran GeoCities for its demise, although mistakes were clearly made. It was also a situation where the world was changing and taking the internet along with it.
In a way, the invention of WordPress took advantage of this and allowed users to create websites, drawing the attention of people like me who had a history of sites like GeoCities and wanted to take the next technological step.
My site, Noli Nothis Permittere Te Terere (Latin for Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down) picked up exactly where my old GeoCities site left off, and many of the people who would frequently send me messages there started commenting on my posts.
Sometimes, I would post about my struggles with daily life, then I’d tell a funny story about something that happened to me. In my life, a lot of strange, weird, and bizarre things go on and, frankly, they often need to be documented.
In some ways, Noli Nothis was better than the old site, and in some ways it was worse. Actually, I think everything stayed the same, the intensity just doubled. Some people seemed nicer while others seemed to be the embodiment of pure evil – and in one case in particular, he most definitely was. (Long story short – one of the people who had left dozens of negative comments was arrested for attempting to bomb a local synagogue – an early example of what would become an “incel”.
I don’t want to discourage anyone from becoming a blogger, if that is something they really want to do. However – it is important to realize that being one is not always all rainbows and unicorns, and it may bring you into contact with some of the worst behaviors that Earth has to offer.
Blogging in the 1990s and 2000s did teach me how to develop a much thicker skin, and it’s a lesson that I am very glad I learned.
Even when I was working on blogs that didn’t have anything even remotely controversial, some people will take offense to the weirdest things – from grammar or punctuation (don’t believe me, just search the internet for the “Oxford Comma” and don’t let it suck you in) to any slight infraction they perceive, if it’s in the realm of reality or not.
Through the various websites I’ve run or been a contributor to, I have met some truly amazing people, have had so many thrilling discussions, and have done things that I would not have been able to do otherwise.
Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had a desire (some may call it a mission) to leave this world in a better state than it was when I found it. Now, I don’t think I’m going to change the world in a major way, like some of the great people whose names have been recorder by history – but if I can make even the smallest positive change, that’s enough for me.
When I was teaching basic computer skills class, I taught an 81-year-old woman how to use e-mail (among other things). I knew I was doing good things, but didn’t think much of it. Then, one day about a week after class, the woman appeared at my office door, tears rolling down her face. They were tears of joy, she insisted. Even though she had always lived in town, all four of her children had moved away and started families of their own. She had six grandchildren, who she only got to see about once a year if she was lucky. Now, she was sending them emails every day and wanted me to know how thankful she was.
Because of her, I realized I wasn’t just teaching people how to use computers, I was giving people the skills they could use to change their own lives and if that isn’t leaving the world a better place, I don’t know what is.
So, anyway…
You want to start a blog. Great. They can be a lot of fun … but they can also be a lot of hard work.
But, in the end … I hope you find it was worth it.