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Why do I come here and do this? At this point, after all these years it is probably a sort of compulsion more than anything else.

It started with a social media platform that doesn’t exist anymore. It was 2006, I think. Maybe 2005. After years of having a sort of online social life via America Online Chat rooms I was looking for a new source of faux-human interaction online and I hit on Yahoo 360. I created a profile and started clicking on stuff. It had a blog function built into it and I wrote something about Pluto’s demotion to Dwarf Planet that I thought was kinda funny. A few people commented. I was a little hooked.

Practically no one was using Yahoo 360 though, at least practically no one I knew, so I went looking for another outlet. I ended up on Myspace. Myspace had a blog function too so I kept writing. All of those posts are here on this page now. They are anything dated prior to mid-November 2008. Blogging on Myspace was fun. It wasn’t the most important thing that happened on that platform though. I met a woman there. A wonderful, brilliant, beautiful, charming, witty, hilarious woman named Jennifer. In 2009 we got married. Yeah, I met my wife on Myspace. Tip of the hat to old Tom’s social media platform.

In mid-November 2008 I was having a slow day at work. During my lunch break I went poking around for a new blogging platform. I ended up with Google’s Blogger, which I think used to be an independent thing called Blog Spot, wasn’t it? I created a blog and challenged myself to post once a day. I ended up posting multiple times a day. I also had a spin off page that wasn’t public that I used to post anything related to Jen’s kids and my niece and nephews and really anyone I knew who was under age. The main page was public, the kids page was private. In December 2012 I moved from Blogger to WordPress.com. A few years later I moved from WordPress.com to Medium and then a short time later moved back to WordPress.com on a new account, and that’s where we are today. All of the posts from the other platforms and accounts are here on this page now. I merged them all when I created this page.

None of that answers the question of why though. Well, it answered the original why. I was looking for a way to be social without actually having to go out and interact with real people. The ultimate introvert work around. I will admit to having been a bit of a social media content whore for a while there. I was posting to Facebook and Twitter very often, as well as the blog. Eventually Facebook made me feel gross so I stopped posting there and I started posting more here. For a while there I wasn’t really posting to the blog daily. Close, but I had cut down a lot. I think it was summer 2019 when I re-challenged myself to focus on the blog more. It was 2020 or 2021 when I shut myself off from Facebook. When that putz Elon Musk bought twitter I shut myself off from that platform too. The frequency of posts here increased yet again. The only other social media platform I am playing with today are instagram, though I don’t really engage with other people there, I just post pictures, and Bluesky, though I don’t post there very often.

So why am I still posting here? The whole faux-social thing is still part of it. I also just like sharing photos and music. I like having a place where I can share my opinions knowing that basically no one other than a few close relatives are paying any attention. I can be as pissed off as I need to be to get my ya-ya’s out, you know? I can get my pseudo-intellectual frustrations out over politics or social issues or sports or work or health or anything at any time I like.

There’s also a historical thing at play now. This is not really a blog per se, as it isn’t focused on any one topic. It’s more just a personal journal that I just happen to leave open to the public. Dear Diary, today I stubbed my toe. Har Har Har. The historical aspect is this gives me 17 years and counting worth of This Day in History data. I can click on something I post today, go to the URL and remove the post title, and then change the folder path to show me the same date in prior years. I can go back through my past one year at a time and read about what I was doing on this date. Since the start of the pandemic the frequency of posts has sky rocketed from maybe 1-3 posts or so to more like 6-10. There are a lot of past thoughts to review. I find this process both interesting and exceptionally goofy, and I enjoy doing it every now and then.

So to sum up why I come here, I enjoy writing, I enjoy reading old posts, and I enjoy the simulated social interactions. It’s also basically a way for me to send messages to my wife. Basically everything that I post here is written with her in mind. Hi love!

There you have it. This was quite the long post, huh? I wasn’t planning on that. While we’re on a roll, let’s add one more thing. How about we ask Google Bard what it thinks? I asked the AI, “why should one write a blog?”

This is what it came up with:

There are many reasons why someone might want to write a blog. Here are a few of the most common:

• To share their knowledge and expertise. If you have a passion for a particular topic and want to share your knowledge with others, blogging is a great way to do it. You can write about your own experiences, research findings, or insights on the topic. This can help you to establish yourself as an expert in your field and build an audience of people who are interested in what you have to say.
• To connect with others. Blogging can be a great way to connect with other people who share your interests. When you write blog posts, you are inviting people to engage with you and share their own thoughts and ideas. This can lead to meaningful conversations and relationships.
• To promote their business or brand. If you have a business or brand, blogging can be a great way to promote it. You can write blog posts about your products or services, industry news, or other topics that are relevant to your target audience. This can help you to attract new customers and grow your business.
• To make money. While blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme, it is possible to make money from it. There are a number of ways to do this, such as advertising, affiliate marketing, and selling your own products or services. If you are able to build a large and engaged audience, you can potentially generate a significant income from your blog.

In addition to these specific reasons, blogging can also be a rewarding experience in general. It can be a great way to express yourself creatively, learn new things, and grow as a person.

Here are some additional benefits of writing a blog:

• Improve your writing skills. The more you write, the better you will become at it. Blogging can be a great way to practice your writing skills and develop your own unique voice.
• Boost your SEO. Search engines love fresh content, so blogging regularly can help to improve your website’s ranking in search results. This can lead to more traffic to your site and more opportunities to connect with potential customers or readers.
• Build an email list. One of the best ways to stay in touch with your audience is to build an email list. You can use your blog to encourage people to subscribe to your email list, where you can send them updates about your latest blog posts, products, or services.
• Have fun! Blogging can be a lot of fun. It is a great way to share your thoughts and ideas with the world and connect with other people who share your interests.

If you are thinking about starting a blog, I encourage you to go for it! It is a great way to share your knowledge, connect with others, and promote your business or brand.

https://bard.google.com