Oh, I Still Have A Blog
December 7, 2013 § 1 Comment
I feel bad for neglecting my blog this entire semester. The main reason was that I was simply too busy taking two classes and doing two internships (not recommended but I might do it again next semester?? Not trying to kill myself I swear). Another, smaller but just as significant reason was that I wasn’t sure what I wanted my blog to be.
In school, both at NYU and MU, we’ve been taught that we as journalists should “brand” ourselves, which includes professional life (duh) as well as social media and blogging activity. Regarding social media, I think I do an adequate job; after going back and forth about keeping my Twitter private or public, I decided to clean up my act and just keep it public. I’ve been using it since 2009, and during the first few years I just wanted to keep it informal: No capitalization (except for proper nouns) and the occasional rant/curse word. Well, everybody has to grow up at some point, and if I want to participate in the larger Twitter community, I should just tweet like an adult. Done.
Casting a vision for this blog takes a bit more work. Lots of writers specialize, and I think I would do okay writing only about pop culture — I wouldn’t mind trying beauty/makeup but frankly I don’t have the money nor patience to photograph my face up-close — but I realized the reason I fell in love with blogging was simply the freedom to write about myself, my thoughts and my activities. It’s gratifying even if nobody reads it.
After all, if I want to write something on a specific topic, I could just pitch it to (or work for) any number of professional blogs/publications. I need a personal space to get my thoughts out without the pressure of writing something original or definitive.
Some of my favorite bloggers are young women in Singapore — Xiaxue, Jayne, Beatrice, Peggy, Evonne, Yina — who simply write about their day-to-day activities (with accompanying high-quality photos, of course. They’re all so pretty!). It’s just interesting to learn about someone’s life in an intimate yet also detached way. I feel like that kind of lifestyle blogging isn’t that popular in America, where the best-known personal blogs here are probably mostly fashion ones, and the kind of content I’m talking about is more common on YouTube vlogs. I’m not saying I hope to accrue sponsors or hundreds of readers, but I’d like to adopt that carefree, self-centered (hah!) attitude again.
Besides, and this could be the millennial in me speaking (me me me me me me), but I feel like social media simply isn’t enough to document my quotidian life (ME ME MEEEE). I mean, four months have flown by and what do I remember except work and more work? Twitter is for links and quips, Instagram is for the occasional, carefully chosen photo (honestly I’m just not that into it; also my iPhone 4 camera sucks), and Facebook…I don’t really post on Facebook. So I should get back to my roots. After all, I’ve been blogging for a DECADE! Wow. (Much blogging, so expert, nice writing, wow.)
Can you believe I’ve written almost 500 words about blogging?? It’s clearly meant to be.
Xiaxue (and a few others) recently turned to Dayre, a mobile blogging app, which is actually super convenient with a foolproof interface. My friends who struggle with the upkeep of traditional blogging would like it, I think. I might give it a go once in a while but will mainly stick to WordPress.
For now, I need to go finish my final papers. Expect to hear more from me soon :)
auradis 
[…] said in an earlier post that I wanted to start blogging more regularly, especially writing more about my day-to-day life […]