What do you mean I've had this blog for 15 years

I started this blog in June 2011 because Blogspot was the hip thing to have back then. God even knows the number of blogs this one has outlived due to my love of my own writing voice (callback to what I wrote in the About section of this blog) and stubborn refusal to abandon the social media trends I actually like. I still have a Blogspot/Blogger, but death before getting a tiktok account.

My first ever blog post 

My first ever book review  (was I actually giving books letter grades back then?!)

My first post of flash book reviews written because I didn't want to write a dedicated book review post for each one, a common staple in this blog

Upon rereading my first-ever blog post, it looks like I meant for this blog to be a place to put my writing and other thoughts. I have done a bit of that (you can still find almost everything I wrote here as I haven't really deleted anything), but what I've written the most seems to be book reviews. To me, there is something very comforting about how old-school blogs and the ability to configure their look feel. It reminds me of the good old days of the internet, how it was when we were both growing up together.

People still share their thoughts online, but mostly in short-video format. I think few people really have the attention span and patience to read others' long-form thoughts anymore. We went from blogs (web-logs) to MySpace/Facebook posts to tweets to... We don't really have a new set way of communicating textually, do we? It's just Bluesky/Threads tweets still, maybe memes, and video (tiktoks) dominates all. 

I don't kid myself by thinking I have or have ever really had (or will ever have) an audience; even in the first-ever blog post, I address the "possibly nonexistent reader". The near-anonymity makes me feel comfortable writing and posting whatever stupid thing I feel like. Just a month or two ago, I got over 1200 hits on this blog, possibly due to having posted something on Instagram (I link to this blog in my link.tree, which in turn is linked to on my IG profile); clearly people were nosy enough to click through. The number staggers; that many people are looking at my Instagram and my silly little blog? I've only ever written for myself, although I like to check the stats to see how many hits I've gotten and what posts have been viewed (and cringe if it's my old poetry). Anyway. 

Thanks for coming to my blog's quinceañera I guess