Does anyone read blogs? There is really a lot of crap out there.

my favorite is dooce

as to blogs being a better storage solution, that seems strange. text files aren't taking up much room

That was totally overstated, but I'm glad you found it a bit funny! After I viewed the thread, I couldn't believe how much I typed to make a relatively simple point.

I don't know if anyone else has similar reasons, but it gives a me a lot of pleasure.

I had loads of trouble with a blog spot plus account, it wouldn't let me save to the ftp site, and Blogger never replied to my emails so I fucked it all off.

But I think I'll try it again, thanks peeps.

(I've tried making a 'graphic' novel but when I realised that one page was taking almost a month to do - I gave up on the idea)

I do my blog because I used to write but then got into a field where I don't write and I miss it. I've always kept a journal, but the blog is a little different. It helps me think about things in different ways too.

Whoa!

og mommyblogger dooce has become completely and terf-ily unhinged

jfc that is unhinged and terrifying

(tbf I only read the first 10% and then jumped to the last 20% because, holy shit)

idk just looks like your garden variety transphobe to me?

This prompted me to look up http://ix.1sound.com/, which is mentioned in the OP's post, all of nineteen years ago. I had never heard of it. As with Ilxor's "nineteen years pass..." there's something melancholic about an internet archive timeline that looks like this:
https://i.imgur.com/ENNdzCu.png

It was called Interactive-X and it was a spin-off of 1sound.com, which I haven't heard of either. Apparently some kind of Soundcloud / Bandcamp clone - predecessor? clone? - but from 2002:
https://www.fool.com/specials/2002/09/10/foolcom-forget-recording-contracts-speci.aspx

Or would it have been an MP3.com clone? Who knows. "A few months ago, I was offered the opportunity to be a member of the indie-geared 1Sound.com founding group. At a time when online music-distributor sites were either scaling back or closing their doors, it was an easy proposition to accept. As a free site that will begin vetting for quality indie music later this year, it's just another step toward the trend I see emerging in the industry."

I think when the writer says "offered the opportunity" he actually means that he was sent a spam email. Of course like everything - literally every word, including "and" and "the" - on fool.com that article is bullshit, because 1sound.com didn't "begin vetting for quality indie music later this year", or any other year. It just collapsed.

On a personal level back in 2003 I was still a professional writer, so I had a website which collected my portfolio, but I eventually gravitated to a blogging platform long after blogs had ceased to be a thing because I didn't have to waste money on a URL. My blog essentially exists to give me something to read in future, and also to give the impression - as the OP points out - that I'm a lot more interesting than I am in real life. Online I am a globe-trotting man of the world for whom everything comes naturally and everything is easy. In real life I sit surrounded by bottles of pee in a converted outhouse on the outskirts of a small village on the Wilshire/Hampshire border. At the same time I'm self-aware enough not to post restaurant trips or links to other blogs. I'm essentially trying to copy a chap called Greg Goebel, who has been writing lengthy, detailed articles about science and technology since the year dot, in a charmingly old-school style:
http://vc.airvectors.net/tamsl.html

to be clear, the OP was a horrible troll and garbage person, a.k.k. "Nude Spock"

"a.k.a"

OP shouldn’t knock narcissism so much: it’s probably a strong basis for a lot of the artworks (especially memoirs) that I greatly enjoy.

Online I am a globe-trotting man of the world for whom everything comes naturally and everything is easy. In real life I sit surrounded by bottles of pee in a converted outhouse on the outskirts of a small village on the Wilshire/Hampshire border.

― Ashley Pomeroy

gotta say i find the latter far more compelling to me personally

i've had a number of false starts re: online writing. my first attempt was a shortlived e-zine in 1998 consisting mainly of batshit insane stream-of-consciousness rants which have aged very poorly. i think it was around 2003? ish? that i jumped on the livejournal bus, but that mainly turned out to be, to the extent that i can recall, a bunch of whinges about how miserable i was (note that i was, in fact, really profoundly miserable during that time). in 2011 i started an attempt at blogging gravity's rainbow with my now-ex, which was so insignificant that i forgot ever having done it until a dextromethorphan enthusiast and Pynchon fan found it and emailed me a couple of months ago, asking if I was planning to continue it. it was nice, it gave me an opportunity to tell him what had gone on in my life since then.

the main thing about my later blogs was that i wasn't confident in my ability to keep to a deadline on my own. when i decided to start another blog project in march 2020, then, i got a good friend to be my co-blogger. he's a great guy and a good writer and he's written maybe five posts during the entire lifespan of the blog.

i, on the other hand, seem to have actually clicked with this whole "blogging" thing finally, to a surprising extent. i've been doing it regularly for close to two and a half years now, and it's one of the most personally satisfying parts of my life. i've worked really hard on it and as a result i've gotten much better as a writer. prior to this blog i mostly worked in the "message board post" format, which, i mean, i think i do ok with message board posts but nobody is out there trying to write the Great American Message Board Post. they're high-context. they don't hold up that well.

between january and april 2021 i used the blog to publish a 60,000 word memoir of my gender transition. since that point i've sort of pivoted the blog, originally just about all sorts of pop culture detritus, to be mainly about trans shit, interspersed with the occasional bit of weirdness like "Sparks Promotes the Cable Music Channel". my current back-burner project, until life goes completely bonkers again and i have to abandon it, is to polish up some of the essays i've written for it and put it into a book. it's not the best writing, but the fortunate thing about working in a niche is that i don't have as much competition. trans memoirs are, well, they're the lowest form of trans writing. everybody has one and everybody loves to trash-talk them. i personally like mine, but i don't really see why another transition memoir by some internet white girl would be particularly worth one's time to read, regardless of its quality. but i like it and the friends of mine who've read it like it, which is all i really need.

the essay collection, if i ever finish it, will probably suffer the same fate. the thing is, in a post-isabel fall world, i'm pretty terrified to actually tell anybody about my writing. even if it wasn't for the rejection-sensitive dysphoria, being visibly trans on the internet opens you up to a whole lot of nasty shit, particularly given that my style of writing goes in hard on extreme emotional vulnerability. i'm half-anticipating/half-dreading the remote possibility that some day someone will discover this cache (unindexed by google) of lengthy, interesting, thoughtful essays going back two years and it'll wind up going viral.

fortunately for me i'm going to have another chance to wipe the slate clean. the friend on whose site the blog is hosted is going to let the domain name lapse, so everywhere i've posted links to my blog posts over the past two years, they'll all be dead. i might start a third iteration. already know what i'd call it. can't say for sure. i got too much going on to worry too much about it now.

anyway. my major creative project of the past two years has been doing all of this writing which i'm really proud of and which very few people will ever actually read, and about the only consolation is that occasionally i pop by this message board to let people know that my writing actually exists :)