Panel 1, Page 1 of Invisibles #1 (1994) by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell.
I remember when blogging was a huge thing.
Its heyday (in my personal timeline, at least) was a period between 2006 to 2009, when it felt like every creative I knew ran a blog, curating their personal streams of purified Thought Octane that you could dive through with gusto. It was a word party with music and cocktails, jumping through bookmarks every morning and reading all the new posts, surfing hyperlinks for new inspo at top speed. The rush was invigorating.
I had filled a room in my brain with online thinkers who inspired, provoked and educated me, and I responded in turn with my own writings. At one point, I had two Livejournals and a Blogger page going, plus a secret Wordpress diary on the side. I was really, really into it.
Raphael, “School of Athens” (detail), 1509–1511
I haven’t blogged since 2014. Social media really killed that. It’s not hard to see why. Even back then, we had RSS feeds and aggregators, but something like Facebook really streamlined that process—making it so easy to post rich multimedia content compiled in a convenient chronological timeline that you could scroll through on one platform. Anyone could do it. It was nice.
Artist Unknown, #BeWater Poster from the Hong Kong Protests, 2019. (via archive.org)
These days, it’s not so nice. With the advent of the algorithm, which now ranks content via engagement (and, more cringey, “advertiser-friendliness,”) I’ve found social media to be increasingly less open to slow thoughts and considered writing. What was once a nourishing reading experience has become a draining chore fraught with unreliable, sensationalist information and hot-take hullabaloos, not to mention hyper-emotional commentary. (One of the new words in 2020 is “doomscrolling”, which I think perfectly describes the average FB feed experience these days.)
In retrospect, it’s not a huge surprise: any system which is weighted towards quantity of attention will tend toward the extreme. Which is why it all feels so awfully toxic these days—less measured conversation and more people just shouting at each other. That’s what gets the eyeballs and the advertiser $$$.
Well, I’m not interested in shouting at anyone. This isn’t the place for that. This is a place to sip something sweet and talk about things that feed our minds and nourish our spirits. So sit. Be calm. Listen to the wagtails and warblers. Feel the warmth in your cup and the atmosphere of zen.
Author selfie, 2020.
I’ve been doing this a little on my Instagram, but sometimes you just want a place where the words weigh as much as the images, you know? All the little vignettes/poetry bits/scribbles/notes that don’t belong anywhere else need a place to go. And that’s here, my friends.
Welcome to my little notebook blog. This probably won’t have a huge audience, but that’s okay. This way, I can wear comfy clothes, kick back and just shoot the shit.
If you’re reading this, that’s good enough for me. 💛