Blogging is cool and always has been, also hello world!
Life and the modern web made me believe that having a personal blog is a waste of time, because what's the point if nobody will find you? If the algorithm doesn't serve your content to your potential audience? Without reach, why even bother?
But these days I've come to realize: I don't care!
Because it's not about metrics, numbers, success; not back then, and not now. That's just what capitalism big tech and the social media platforms want you to think, so that you keep using their platforms in the firm belief that there's no other way to connect to other fellow humans. The Japanese might say to that "δ»ζΉγγͺγ",1 but I won't. Not any longer.
I remember the internet as it used to be before they showed up and spoiled the party.
When I first got in touch with the world wide web, I had to use dial-up on my dad's computer, you know, Windows Me, CRT monitor and all. Wonderful afternoons of my childhood in retrospect; the internet looked and behaved very differently from its current iteration. It was a wilder and weirder place, but at its core always very human. For better or for worse. You could and would interact with all these strangers from all over the globe, building connections and relationships regardless of the confines of your identity in your day-to-day life. Yet the moment the monitor went dark, you were offline. Logged-out meant logged-out. Digital was optional, not necessary.
The trap to lure us all in.
When social media arrived, they initially had to replicate and refine the experience people were used to from the internet; the early days of Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube were indeed social. Things went viral because a lot of people liked it, not (only) because the dopamine machine god and its masters decided so.
On Instagram, you followed people you cared about or thought had an interesting online presence, your schoolmates and maybe family; that was it. There were no reels, no algorithmic feeds, no shops, just pics of people you followed. Twitter was micro-blogging, as people called it at the time.
There were no Discord servers with massive communities, instead us nerdy kids had TeamSpeak installed (before that Skype lol), a bare bones communication tool where someone had to host or set up a server so you and your friend group could talk to each other on their computers; the alternative was knowing someone who let you join theirs. Oh the memories of getting tinnitus from some goofy teenage gamers screaming nonsense and insults in their microphones; sometimes in jest, other times in rage...
On YouTube, for example, you interacted with the site through the channels you had subscribed to, because front page was oftentimes trash. And you know what? We didn't mind that, not even one bit. Oh and talking with your friend group, at school or on the TeamSpeak about this cool new YouTube channel you just found? Shared experiences, connections formed.
With the advent of the smartphone, everything changed. At first, having a smartphone as a teenager at the time was something special, not something to be expected as given. Then it became the trendy thing most just had or got, especially the ones with stronger socioeconomic backgrounds. Then they were everywhere. The world changed; not overnight, but in small increments instead. Each time just barely enough for most of us to not really notice until the internet, as we knew it, was completely transformed. I don't need to elaborate any further on what the 2026 social web experience feels like; just go onto the platform of your choice and look at what it presents you with.
Ask yourself, are you enjoying it? If so, why? Can you remember what you were watching / consuming just moments ago? Was it a conscious decision or was it fed to you by the algorithm? Did it enrich your life? Would you tell your friends or family about that one cool thing you've just experienced? Ask yourself these, and other similar questions will arise naturally. You might not like some of the answers you'll find.
If you're here right now, however, I assume you made a decision, just as I did very recently: reject the unconscious 24/7 information bombardment on our attention and embrace a conscious life and web experience. What you and me are doing is quite simple; we are not letting some algorithms and big tech overlords decide what we should see and how we should experience it.
Blogging is cool, this is why I like it.
The dead internet theory is no longer theory, but reality. On the big platforms, that is. Thanks to the many amazing people who are fighting for a free and open web, I am able to make a blog in minutes and transmit my thoughts all over the web / the globe. I want to use this opportunity to explicitly thank Herman, who is the creator of Bear Blog. What I want to do on here is something more deliberate, something more personal: I want to express myself and my thinking in ways that feel genuine to myself. Maybe even connect to other minds alike.
I believe that every phenomenon is a result of some other phenomenon, connected and in constant change. It cannot arise independently and cannot vanish without consequences. The true nature of any object is an illusion of the mind, even the very perception and thought of it itself. If you process it through that angle, dualism dissolves, and from it non-dualism arises.
θ²ε³ζ―η©Ίγη©Ίε³ζ―θ²2
For me personally, writing posts like this one here feeds my soul. If any one mind were to get something out of it, I would think the world is truly beautiful, as something positive like that can exist. Just as watching a good anime together with my girlfriend feeds my soul; or playing Baldur's Gate 3 (again...); or finding good new music to upload via my Linux PC to my self-hosted music server feeds my soul in ways that feel natural to me.3
What do they all have in common? Being conscious decisions on how to spend the little pockets of free time I do have, I suppose. That's it, but at the same time that's enough. Time is one of the most valuable resources we can have.
The universe smiles upon you; remember to smile back π
I hope that reading this blog post gave you anything of value. For me, writing it has given me immense satisfaction. Wherever you, dear reader, are on this planet we call home, I wish you a wonderful weekend.
Until we meet again, I wish you happiness, peace and love π±