I touched on this topic in my very first post, but I wanted to come back to it to develop my ideas a bit.
It's a good question: in the era of social networks where everything moves so fast, why keep a blog that almost no one reads? I could keep posting on Patreon, Instagram and that would be just fine.
Yes, but here's the thing: everything I post on social media, in the end, doesn't belong to me. Even though I’ve had a page for decades, if tomorrow the site in question shuts down for any reason, I lose everything. All my work, my investment, the hours spent on it, everything is deleted. In an instant. POOF.
I had started writing this article even before the American presidential election, and the feeling I had back then is even stronger today with the drastic changes in the social networks we knew.
Here, I'm the one paying the bill; my domain name, my online shop, and my site's hosting. Every year. Even if my host shuts down, I’ll still have my domain name and can migrate my site elsewhere. I am free to write whatever I wish and to share what I like, to modify as I please, in any format I want without having to adapt (except for the text editor, but that's nothing).
The other great pleasure of keeping a blog on my own site is that I can see the evolution. If you take the example of Maliki, her adventures have been posted since September 2004! More than 20 years of articles, comic strips, reflections, changes! You can easily dive back in, even start over from the very beginning if you want. I find it crazy and so beautiful! Sure, it's still possible to scroll back through her whole Insta wall and find the first posts, but already, it takes a long time (especially if you’ve been there for years, like I have), and, once again, if the site shuts down tomorrow, all of this no longer exists. More than being attached to pixels, it’s a story written little by little, line by line, drawing by drawing.
I’ve kept lots of skyblogs/tumblrs throughout my life and even forgotten some. All those memories, when not saved somewhere, inevitably disappear. Sometimes that's okay, sometimes it's a shame.
In short, if you have a site somewhere, I strongly encourage you to keep a blog on it! Not necessarily super regularly, not necessarily every day, but for example also posting the articles you wrote for Patreon, your Instagram posts too—why not. Everything you post on social media in general, which has taken you time and energy, also deserves to have a place on your own blog ♡!
A little (non-exhaustive) list of the advantages of keeping a blog
✦ you’ll be able to find your posts in a few years and see your evolution, with a fond eye on your past self
✦ everything belongs to you and is unlikely to disappear, unless you want it to
✦ you can take a step back and take the time to write, to reflect on the layout, on the illustrations or pictures you want to include. You breathe a little more calmly
✦ you’re not dependent on anyone else when it comes to the content you share
So, when do we start blogging?
Latipule 𓅯