On Blogging Versus Social Media

September 22, 2020

I read Rubenerd's post about seriousness, and it got me to thinking. Most people these days are content to post on social media. Very few have their own blogs, let alone a dedicated personal website.

But that's not the web I grew up with.

I've had many blogs over the years. They've been powered by different services or software, and had different focuses. But taken as a whole, they've painted a picture remarkably similar to modern social media posts - snapshots of my life at the time. Things that I've been thinking about, things I'm excited about, things I'm angry about.

There are two key differences, though. Blog posts tend to run a lot longer than social media posts, and I fully control the platform on which they appear.

Also, people who read blogs tend to be more willing to read longer content. On social media, the vast majority of users seem to only be interested in reacting to short sentences and images. There's nothing wrong with that, exactly, but it's not the kind of interaction I'm looking for when I write longer content.

The other thing that Rubenerd made me remember is back when I drew cartoon faces for my earliest websites to reflect my mood for any given update. Maybe I should resurrect that practice and give my site a little more playfulness.