Although this website is not as old, I’ve been blogging since 2002. Blogging was starting to be a trend at that time. I forgot when the trend started to vanish but I’ve had a few weblog URLs. I started with Blogger and then I moved to buy my own domain + host. I’ve had a few domain names also. I started to get new friends from blogging community and I even met them offline.

I remember that there’s a website dedicated to nominating weblogs according to specific categories: lifestyle, technology, entertainment, etc. After the winners’ announcement, they posted the links of the winners. And of course I started to visit the blogs. A few of them were: Popagandhi, Dooce, Yongfook, Xiaxue. Of course there are many more but currently I only remember these. Today I remember Dooce (Heather) so I visited her website and noticed that her last post was in 2023. At that time I thought that she might be taking a break from blogging. I was surprised that her blog still exists. And then I scrolled down and found her “About Me” section. For fun I clicked on her Wikipedia. Everything was alright until I looked at the right side of the page and read: Died. I was like,”wait the minute….Died?!? Has Wikipedia predicted when she’d die???” May 9, 2023 (aged 47) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. I screamed out loud,”NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” Followed by a moment of silence. I had never expected her to end her life that way. But I’ve always been so amazed at her. She’s so open about her life. I meant, it’s totally normal to be open to people around, friends and family, because they knew us. But she wrote on her blog for the whole world to read. It’s really the opposite to me. I do share my thoughts but for a long time I haven’t shared about my life for quite a long time. And yes, I do have ever shared it, but it’s been decades ago, exactly the first few years of my blogging era. And it was on Blogger.COM. Many people started blogging on Blogger.com, although there were a few other blog-hosts, too back then. And then I moved to having my own host and domain name. I felt like I’ve upgraded 😀

Blogging has taught me many things including how to edit my blog layout. From that era I also started to learn HTML and later on CSS and PHP [although only editing. I’ve never coded from scratch]. I’m very grateful of the skills I’ve achieved from just signing up on blogger. I started to get new friends and have met them offline, too. Years have gone by, slowly I saw my friends stopped blogging one by one and I too stopped blogging, not only life got in the way but I also got problem with my web host provider. And then a few years later I made a new free weblog to write short stories. But that’s it.

Now….is blogging dead?

I don’t know. There still are people who blog, but most of them have moved to Youtube I think. Back then, blogging was a thing because it’s where we poured out our opinions, and even shared our daily life. In the beginning I saw blogging as an online journal. Then I learned that not everything happened to me had to be read by the whole world. One day, though, I was gathering with my church community. These people attend church in another city, but we all have the same head pastor [it’s like, let’s say Aldi supermarket: there are many Aldi supermarkets in different cities, but it’s the same Aldi. Not Wally, or something]. In that community there were people I didn’t know. Never met. Some of them I have met, but rarely because the distance separated us [just like you and me 😉 ]. One guy came to me and asked,”are you [insert my blog URL here]?” Instead of asking my name. I was surprised! THEY. READ. MY. BLOG?!??! Still, I didn’t feel paranoid. I just went on with blogging. I think this was somewhere in 2004. A long time ago, thus. I was still a lot younger and I blogged like nobody’s reading. Nevertheless, the reason I still blog now is because I just love sharing my thoughts. I would share my thoughts by having a Youtube channel, but as soon as I know that there’s a camera in front of me, I become speechless. Maybe I’ll have a Youtube channel soon. I’m still thinking about it. I think I’ll speak Indonesian there. What subject? That’s still a secret.

Will I ever stop blogging?

Nope. I know I have abandoned this weblog for a couple of years. But it’s still active and I’m not gonna let this one go. And I don’t get paid for this. I do this for fun 🙂

Dear Heather B. Armstrong, may you rest in peace! Thank you for sharing your daily life and thoughts.