The old Web: lost & found
I mentioned in my about page that I used to be a web designer. I have a degree in library science, but I was a web designer for longer than I was a librarian. Even when I was at my last library job. I was tasked with the maintenance of the office website, which I was more than happy to do. I just loved tinkering with CSS and HTML. But then, somehow, I lost interest in the webby stuff altogether (blogging included), partly because of my rising interest in photography—both analog and digital—and partly because I switched to WordPress.
WordPress themes were available so freely and abundantly, and it made me lazy. All I had to do was pick one of the gazillion pre-made themes, customized it a bit, and I got a presentable blog. I'd change the look of my blog almost as often as I change clothes. I'd be happy with it for a little while, but the design never actually felt like mine, and it was bugging me.
I tried to make my own theme from scratch so many times but never got around to finishing one. There were so many templates to create and customize. It was too overwhelming for me so I just quit. Don't even get me started on the newfangled block editor. Ugh. I hated it so much. I've always been a Notepad kind of web designer. The block editor simply went way over my head. Not to mention that it didn't work on my Android tablet, which is what I've been using to do stuff on the Web for the last 15 years or so.
Not having a blog that's sporting my own design, I just didn't feel like blogging anymore. Plus, all my blog friends from the early 2000's had all quit blogging (though I did get to meet a few of them in person, even the ones from Australia and Singapore). I spent a lot of time on Flickr, where I made a lot of connections, until Yahoo! bought it and it started to go downhill. Everyone I liked started to disappear from the site and eventually I did too. I also spent a bit of time on Twitter, but never really made any real connections there, and we all know what happened to Twitter.
Then I had a stint as a "plantstagrammer" on Instagram a couple of years before the pandemic hit. It was one of the most cringey times of my life, but it would be a remiss if I didn't mention that my plantstagram had almost reached 50k followers when Instagram algorithm screwed me over and my "engagement" plummeted drastically. I wasn't willing to change to please the algorithm gods (and evil Zuck), so I quit. I still love plants, though.
I'm so glad that I eventually found the Fediverse. It almost feels like the old Internet that I knew and loved, where people were mostly civilized, supportive, and kind. A couple of months ago, I started reading about the #IndieWeb on the Fediverse, which reignited my interest in blogging and web design. And then I read somewhere about Datenstrom Yellow, which is the small, flat-file system that's currently powering this blog. I've registered three new domain names since, which I admit is a bit excessive. But when I got an idea for a website, I just can't help thinking about a domain name to go with it, and then I have to register it.
I figured myboringlife.online would be a great domain name for my new blog because it would release me from the pressure to be interesting/to write interesting posts. With a domain name like this, I could be my true, authentic, boring, old self and people wouldn't expect more. Might even make me want to blog more. Genius! Hopefully I won't get tired of it too soon. At the end of the day, I just wish my old blog friends would start blogging again. It would be so fun to start reading about each other's life again, but I understand that they probably have other, better, more important things to do than blogging.