Bringing Back Blogging like it’s 1999!

Nostalgia, authenticity, connection, and the call to return to slower, more intentional content creation and consumption.

I saw this article the other day by TheVerge: Bring Back Personal Blogging , and it got me thinking a lot about what makes a retro personal blog, the ways we blogged, and how it felt to blog in the 90’s.

Buy that domain name. Carve your space out on the web. Tell your stories, build your community, and talk to your people. It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn’t need to duplicate any space that already exists on the web — in fact, it shouldn’t. This is your creation. It’s your expression. It should reflect you. 

TheVerge: Bring Back Personal Blogging

We wrote what we were thinking – at that moment

I remember just popping open LiveJournal and letting my fingers do the writing while I brain-dumped all over the page. No editing. No SEO. Only what I was thinking, and wanted to say at that moment.

We updated DAILY

Again, we posted without abandon, without content calendars or specific niche topics. We used our blogs as an extension of our personal journals and daily diaries.

We got to know each other better

We were interested in our blog buddies and got invested in their lives. We wrote with a vulnerability that let people know more about who we are and shared our stories. We shared what projects we were working on, our cringe poetry, song lyrics and (later) sometimes our blurry Nokia phone pictures. We took online surveys about our favorite bands, stuff we have or haven’t done, and what we liked to eat (that were later used for security question answers… whoops)

We kept up with IRL friends and we made new online ones. Some of us even met our spouses via blog, ahem.

We ACTUALLY READ.

Short-form, forgettable, quick dopamine content is all the rage now. You scroll to the next FaceBook status, or TikTok quickly – never to be remembered again. Seems like a waste of time. I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to be more present in my life these days and social media is starting to make me feel … bad?

But, how about we live in the present moment and take 2-5 minutes to read about what band your friend saw the other night? I KNOW. SO MANY WORDS. TOO MUCH TIME – But I promise your brain can do it, again. Also, your time is better spent, your friend will love you forever when you bring it up IRL (or in the comment section) and have a memorable conversation about their favorite band.

We spent time in the comment section

(Later 90s)We spent time in the blog post comment sections and having conversations. We left long, thoughtful responses and connected. Everyone joined in. We created communities in those comment sections. No quick emoji reactions. What do you mean ???? ? Do you really ❤️ it? WHY? I feel like leaving a comment on a blog gave better social cues (and as a neurodivergent, I need all the context I can get).

We owned our own content

Any of the big social media platforms we use today could shut down at any moment – taking your memories with them. I still have database back ups of everything I have ever written while blogging. Yes, we can back up and get a copy of our data off FaceBook. But how many times have you? How much to we really rely on these platforms with our curated documentation of our lives? And who is looking at it and what are they doing with it?

We lived first and then maybe blogged about it, later.

Our blogs never came to mind while we were doing something out in the world.
I never thought “Im so going to blog about this!” while I was sitting in class, or hanging out with my friends. We just did things and brain dumped it on our desktops with the giant monitors later.

I think that led to posts or entries that were more meaningful. Like when I graduated college, got engaged, decided to move across the country.