Howdy, it’s been a minute since my last post. I began my blogging adventure twenty years ago, when Miseducation first went live. Those teenage years feel like a lifetime ago. Adulthood reshaped the way I view and engage with the world, and the internet has changed dramatically too. That’s part of getting old.

I didn’t know if I would ever come back when I published my last post in late Spring 2007. At the time, writing had become almost a healing and nourishing mechanism to express myself while I learned to navigate this world. I continued to write after I stopped blogging, although privately, we can say that the door remained ajar. It’s said that in life, sometimes you need to go in order to return.

The question of whether or not I should blog again came up earlier this summer. I hurried to buy my old domains without further hesitation. I was thrilled to be back installing WordPress, designing my the website, but mostly writing drafts. But soon I would find that those were the dinosaur years of the internet, far away from today reality.

Though the internet was dominates by monetistation and artificial constructs, it seemed that blogging had survived (or part of it). I did the wise thing to do, which I don’t often do: do not rush into something. With the maintenance mode activated I recapitulated on what blogging meant for me, what this past twenty has been like, and my real motivation to come back.

How the early 2000s internet was like

In the turn of the millennium I was a happy kid that started to spend more time sitting in front of its desktop computer surfing the World Wide Web. Britney Spears, and pop culture in general, were my main obsessions at the time. I would spend hours reading different sites and participating in online forums. I embodied Shakira’s infamous meme posing seated in front of the computer, although unlike hers, mine was always on.

There was a certain sense of community that today’s almost forgotten. Websites published a wide range of materials, from news articles to a vast collection of information in an encyclopaedic style, all for free. As much as you could entrust Google with your searches, you could also dive on similar sites through the Affiliated sites section. Everyone used to put a great deal of effort on the quality of their site’s connecting with like-minded people sharing similar interests.

I think it is important to highlight the sense of community and the passion behind crafting those online projects, where things were done from the heart and not from a financial interest. The arrival of social media, big corporations, data harvesting, paywalls, and SEO shook the internet to its current odd position where the artificial intelligence generates revenue through creative platforms.

I dived into Wayback Machine archives to taste again that early 2000s internet nostalgia. I cherished finding that I was able to navigate through those affiliate site rolls reaching sites that were a blurred image from the past. To my surprise I was able to even navigate blogs hosted in shared domains. Personal sites where the world was explored through an intimate lens.

The personal journal goes online

My earliest memory reading any form of blogging was Lynne’s corner, a space where Spears mother provided insights on Britney’s life in her official website. Fast forward to 2004, when blogging was at its peak, Britney Spears took over her site to tell her own side of the story in a time when the media outlets were creating certain narratives of her private life. It was exactly that rawness that made blogging so special. That was the beginning of her Letters of truth, an intimate space that was truly blogging-coded.

“It’ll include different restaurants I’ve found, movies, CD’s, bands, clothing designers, stores, beauty, fashion, travel, different recipes – stuff like that. What do ya’ll think?” — Britney Spears (September 30th, 2004).

While interested in what my favorite main pop girl had to share, I was completely invested in her fans. Probably because they were more consistent, but also they were more relatable. I was inspired by those life experiences and perspectives at a time when I was learning to navigate the bewilderment of youth. With few exceptions, they were complete strangers that invited us to their personal world.

Those personal universes opened the windows to their life in a webspace that resembled a personal journey, only that it was online for everyone to read. They materialized the Letters of truth intentions: to share and reflect on personal experiences, to share opinions about the world around them, cultural opinion and recommendations, and everything in between. They were the true influencers of the time but without an obnoxious agenda.

I used to sit for hours in front of my desktop scrolling down my RSS aggregator reading the latest stories from my favorite bloggers. When there were no more stories to read, I would start jumping through different blogrolls to discover new stories that may captivate me next. Everything was organically beautiful. No one was desperately trying to get my attention, they were simply sharing unselfishly.

Language and cultural familiarity, as my inexperience at life, draw me closer to Spanish bloggers. I always saw foreigners at the upmost unattainable yet desirable stratospheric levels. The blonder, whiter and different the better. This may be related to some inbred sense of colonization that we may discuss at a different times. In conclusion, in a globalized world I had access to different references to nourish myself.

Spanish blogs such as Watakshi and Diario de un demente were my main blog role models on excellence. As much as I was invested in reading them, I was in other personal blogs such as Mi Sentido or My Town. Personal blogs tended to be more raw and candid, which brought a different layer of introspection. Together they built what felt like an endless personal feed.

The life of those bloggers may have not been of public interest, but their contribution could have been considered a public service. Even the shortest post could always indirectly invite to self-reflect. No short attention span. I wanted to take part of that collective movement, even when my shyness and inexperience overclouded the idea.

Hopping onto the blogging wagon

At 16 years old I created my first site. Now looking back I wonder how I pulled all those things off at such young age. To purchase those web domains, hosting, but eve more impressive how I self-taught myself PHP code, HTML, MySQL, WordPress functions, Photoshop… I took satisfaction both in the process as in the result product, live for anyone to see. I regained that same feeling when I decided to start blogging again.

I always aimed to make things nice and pretty, cause an awe through my craftsmanship. That may be one of the reasons why I studied arts. Even before then, I used to constantly create avatars and signatures for the forums I was active in the years before. I never pursue any career in arts or coding but still are things that I took pride in.

Through my blurred memory I thought I used to write the nicest bodies of text. The Wayback Machine showed me how distorted my vision was. I was unapologetically raw. They candidly show I was not only figuring out how to navigate the world but also getting to now myself better. I think it is safe to say that they are even cringe-worthy at times.

As who faces a blank page, I started to learn to express myself through words, my feelings, thoughts, emotions, desires and experiences. I discovered the power of writing. I never stopped writing even when I thought I was writing into the void. Did those posts had any value? I cannot answer that, but certainly I can affirm that I built a small amount of beautiful readers. Opinions and experiences exchanged in the comment box.

The sense of community was limitless connected through the blogosphere to deep personal connections with likeminded people via MSN Messenger or Skype. I still save some of the conversations with these wonderful people. Some of those connections crossed the digital border meeting whom will be my first love.

Every ending awaits around the corner

I met my first boyfriend online, although outside of the blogosphere, through one of those primal early social networks: Fotolog. He knew I wrote in a blog but was something that never got his interest.

Ahead of the summer of 2007, after almost three years actively blogging, it was time to close the chapter. Erm… Look At Their Return was one of the last post published in May 2007, a month before leaving thousand of miles aways from my hometown. My consistency decayed as I was learning to navigate the long-distance relationship, or better yet said, my first relationship.

In my inner circle only one of my cousin knew about my blog. This with the uncertainty of what was to come helped me to unplug the web. Much was to come as I started to navigate the hardships of adulthood and opened myself to all those new experiences. However, pen and paper were always close.

Now, twenty years later, in a place and time where the artificial intelligence seems to be taking over creative spaces removing the soul from many digital corners, there is an almost-familiar force dragging me back to blog.

But… what is it really bringing me back to blog?