One of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog more.
Hey, that’s no more self-indulgent than “lose weight,” okay? And, in fact, it’s actually quite similar.
I’m trying to lose about 20 pounds of paperweight. I’m notoriously nostalgic, which borderlines on having a hoarding problem. I asked for a nice, big scanner for Christmas, so I can scan some of the miscellaneous memorabilia I’ve collected over the years, and hopefully (eventually) recycle it. We’re talking about the backs of action figure packages, flyers from events, newspaper or magazine clippings, etc. Don’t worry — my house isn’t a maze of old, stacked Time magazines . . . but it would be nice to hang coats in that front closet one day.
So, I’m scanning and scheduling posts to my personal blog. I’m creating themed days and starting slow, but at some point later this year, I hope to have two or three entries up every day. It’s the online equivalent to scrapbooking, with a pinch of housekeeping involved. In full swing, I’ll have an online, personal walk down memory lane that might double as a super-niche fansite, if anybody is into the same stuff I am.
These were my thoughts on the matter last week. Then, I heard a news story that asked if blogging was becoming obsolete. Yes — apparently Tumblr is the next big thing.
I had a Tumblr way back in the day, when I wasn’t sure which platform suited me best. Remember Geocities and LiveJournal? I played with those, too, until I settled on Blogger. The templates were easy for me to manage, and I even learned a little HTML to make things happen that some templates wouldn’t allow. I’m still using Blogger, now to fulfill my New Year’s resolution . . . and you’re telling me it’s going the way of MySpace? But I’m really just getting started!
These many online social networks and platforms are just like my mild hoarding problem. For years, I’ve moved these boxes and trunks of papers from one place to another — from Arizona to California and back again — looking through them very rarely. How many times will you move your social network of “friends” from MySpace to Facebook to LinkedIn to Pinterest to who knows what’s next dot com?
Take my advice this new year. Don’t just blindly move your social network from one cyber storage bin to another. Sit down with it a bit, unpack it, and scan it. You may find it time to trim the fat. You may find having it around all of this time has been worth it after all, and you might share it with others. That’s the most selfless self-indulgent thing you can do!
Russ Kazmierczak Jr. self-publishes mini-comics at KaraokeFanboy Press (but the blog he’s talking about in this article is just called KaraokeFanboy Blogs).
