I love the idea of a digital graveyard! I was chatting to a friend last week about my followers on my blog, and she was shocked they were so low, and I told her how I lost literally 90% when I changed domains. That very first blog is like the mausoleum at the centre of my graveyard, but there's plenty of cadet branches of the digital family tree, and obscure third cousins twice removed buried nearby, ghosts of ideas past, once visited and now long forgotten.
On the other side of the graveyard is my Feedly, full of now-defunct blogs I still miss, my Bloglovin' haunted by followers who have probably forgotten their log in.
I myself am the eccentric old lady who wanders the graveyard in. the dark, laying flowers by headstones no-one will see, speaking to the ghosts, holding unheard conversations.
It's nice to see your thought processes and reasoning behind the shift in your examples; "The Rowdy Fairy" is an excellent name for a blog and sounds like one I would add to Feedly if I came across it today.
I miss Blogger and Bloglovin too. Especially saving articles in themed categories. I wish Substack had a similar thing, it would be a lot easier to find content instead of clicking on a name and hoping for the best! Btw that YouTube and the Sims thing you had going on? Genius!
I had a Xanga- which was blogging before blogging was really a thing. I used a craft forum called Craftster almost daily. Can't forget Myspace. And, various blogs under either wordpress. com or my own URLs. I really wish I could find the one I first really put a lot of effort into (if only to see how awful my photos were!)- it was called "melissa's organic kitchen" and I shared daily posts about what I was learning how to cook.
Enjoyed this. I definitely have some online graveyards through the years as well as projects I have hung onto for all the years. Walking away from a successful YouTube channel sounds like it would have been difficult. Sometimes timing makes the answer for us.
I so enjoyed this read and found it really thought provoking. After being online for over 15 years I have certainly acquired my fair share of community graveyards. Somethings that were so important at the time (old knitting forums), some much missed (Blogger and Google Reader) , some best forgotten (Twitter)
Aww I love this creative walk down memory lane. I've had just as many blogs and things but never had half as much success 😂 You'll do well here on Substack I can tell!
Wow!! I loved playing the Sims too - I wanted to build and decorate beautiful mansions for beautiful people 🤣 been years since I thought about that. Love how you talk about these interests with such affection, and also how you let them go and moved to something new as time passed. I think sometimes we believe that what’s working for us now we will want forever, but in my experience, that’s never the case. Great article, thanks for sharing Tania 💛
Wow Tania - I am totally in awe of your online journey. Its a testimony to your creativity and your business skills that you have had such a varied and interesting online journey.
Tania! Loved the article! You made me feel less of a loser in the on line business and you gave me an idea to dissect sort of some of my endeavours with honesty and less self hatred! Thank you and I look forward to reading your posts!
Love this idea, both as a nostalgic walk down memory lane and also as a self-reflective exercise. Ok, here's my digital graveyard... I started my first blog when I was in college, called Collegetopia. The idea was to help college students create their "ultimate college experience." It was basically a self-help blog disguised as a student advice/college blog. I poured hundreds of hours into that project and it was fairly successful, garnering over 800k+ views on my website and another 500k+ views on other blogging platforms like Quora and Medium where I'd cross post some of my posts. It was super exciting for me to see that I could create something online that could reach so many people. Unfortunately once I decided to shut down the site I foolishly didn't hold onto the domain name, and it got stolen / hi-jacked by a sketchy college essay company, so the fruits of my labor are largely lost (maybe about 25% of my posts remain on the other platforms like Quora and Medium) and my old domain name is no longer mine. After that I quit my corporate tech consulting job and started an online life coaching business, re-branding several times, from a "millennial success coach" to a "self-fulfillment coach" to a "spiritual performance coach" to a "life purpose coach" 🤣 I had a website for my coaching business but mainly used social media to market my services, and had some success initially with this (made $30k my first year) but then plateued and never made more than that. The next few years were a serious struggle, in every way possible as I got super lost in the crazy worlds of New Age spirituality. Eventually I hit rock-bottom and experienced a profound conversion of faith, causing me to revert back to my Catholic faith which I grew up in. So then I started using my social media to share my testimony story. Last summer I started a YouTube channel for the first time (something I'd wanted to do for a long time) and my testimony video currently has almost 10k views. I got burnt out though and am currently taking a break from social media. I'll probably return to YouTube at some point because I do like that platform (don't think I'll be going back to FB or IG... so over the short-form content mediums), but in the meantime, I decided I also wanted to start writing again... so here I am on Substack now! What a journey. Excited to see where things go from here :)
I have so many digital tombstones in my past too. Started all the way back to Tumblr and Wordpress. Then Squarespace and a small, poetry community on IG. I totally relate to the feeling of giving yourself over to the sparks (I also have a graveyard for business ideas haha). So, so relatable!
How cool that you have satiated your creative drive in so many ways! And fun that you have circled back to blog-style creation. Your comment about the “wishlings” (cute name) made me wonder if we need to coin a word for Substack friends. 😆
We're in the same boat! The social atmosphere and community on here so far is amazing and far better than what I could obtain with my old blog. I hope you enjoy your Substack journey ❤️
You've had a fascinating journey too! Glad you found your way to Substack ☺️
I love the idea of a digital graveyard! I was chatting to a friend last week about my followers on my blog, and she was shocked they were so low, and I told her how I lost literally 90% when I changed domains. That very first blog is like the mausoleum at the centre of my graveyard, but there's plenty of cadet branches of the digital family tree, and obscure third cousins twice removed buried nearby, ghosts of ideas past, once visited and now long forgotten.
On the other side of the graveyard is my Feedly, full of now-defunct blogs I still miss, my Bloglovin' haunted by followers who have probably forgotten their log in.
I myself am the eccentric old lady who wanders the graveyard in. the dark, laying flowers by headstones no-one will see, speaking to the ghosts, holding unheard conversations.
It's nice to see your thought processes and reasoning behind the shift in your examples; "The Rowdy Fairy" is an excellent name for a blog and sounds like one I would add to Feedly if I came across it today.
Thank you for the beautifully worded tour of your graveyard 🪦😊
I miss Blogger and Bloglovin too. Especially saving articles in themed categories. I wish Substack had a similar thing, it would be a lot easier to find content instead of clicking on a name and hoping for the best! Btw that YouTube and the Sims thing you had going on? Genius!
I had a Xanga- which was blogging before blogging was really a thing. I used a craft forum called Craftster almost daily. Can't forget Myspace. And, various blogs under either wordpress. com or my own URLs. I really wish I could find the one I first really put a lot of effort into (if only to see how awful my photos were!)- it was called "melissa's organic kitchen" and I shared daily posts about what I was learning how to cook.
What an excellent mix. Yep I remember the MySpace phase too 😅
Enjoyed this. I definitely have some online graveyards through the years as well as projects I have hung onto for all the years. Walking away from a successful YouTube channel sounds like it would have been difficult. Sometimes timing makes the answer for us.
I so enjoyed this read and found it really thought provoking. After being online for over 15 years I have certainly acquired my fair share of community graveyards. Somethings that were so important at the time (old knitting forums), some much missed (Blogger and Google Reader) , some best forgotten (Twitter)
Aww I love this creative walk down memory lane. I've had just as many blogs and things but never had half as much success 😂 You'll do well here on Substack I can tell!
That's very kind of you to say, thanks ☺️
Wow!! I loved playing the Sims too - I wanted to build and decorate beautiful mansions for beautiful people 🤣 been years since I thought about that. Love how you talk about these interests with such affection, and also how you let them go and moved to something new as time passed. I think sometimes we believe that what’s working for us now we will want forever, but in my experience, that’s never the case. Great article, thanks for sharing Tania 💛
You're welcome. Lovely to meet another former simmer out in the wild too 😄
Wow Tania - I am totally in awe of your online journey. Its a testimony to your creativity and your business skills that you have had such a varied and interesting online journey.
Thanks so much ❤️
Tania! Loved the article! You made me feel less of a loser in the on line business and you gave me an idea to dissect sort of some of my endeavours with honesty and less self hatred! Thank you and I look forward to reading your posts!
Glad you found it helpful and thanks for your comment ❤️
Love this idea, both as a nostalgic walk down memory lane and also as a self-reflective exercise. Ok, here's my digital graveyard... I started my first blog when I was in college, called Collegetopia. The idea was to help college students create their "ultimate college experience." It was basically a self-help blog disguised as a student advice/college blog. I poured hundreds of hours into that project and it was fairly successful, garnering over 800k+ views on my website and another 500k+ views on other blogging platforms like Quora and Medium where I'd cross post some of my posts. It was super exciting for me to see that I could create something online that could reach so many people. Unfortunately once I decided to shut down the site I foolishly didn't hold onto the domain name, and it got stolen / hi-jacked by a sketchy college essay company, so the fruits of my labor are largely lost (maybe about 25% of my posts remain on the other platforms like Quora and Medium) and my old domain name is no longer mine. After that I quit my corporate tech consulting job and started an online life coaching business, re-branding several times, from a "millennial success coach" to a "self-fulfillment coach" to a "spiritual performance coach" to a "life purpose coach" 🤣 I had a website for my coaching business but mainly used social media to market my services, and had some success initially with this (made $30k my first year) but then plateued and never made more than that. The next few years were a serious struggle, in every way possible as I got super lost in the crazy worlds of New Age spirituality. Eventually I hit rock-bottom and experienced a profound conversion of faith, causing me to revert back to my Catholic faith which I grew up in. So then I started using my social media to share my testimony story. Last summer I started a YouTube channel for the first time (something I'd wanted to do for a long time) and my testimony video currently has almost 10k views. I got burnt out though and am currently taking a break from social media. I'll probably return to YouTube at some point because I do like that platform (don't think I'll be going back to FB or IG... so over the short-form content mediums), but in the meantime, I decided I also wanted to start writing again... so here I am on Substack now! What a journey. Excited to see where things go from here :)
I have so many digital tombstones in my past too. Started all the way back to Tumblr and Wordpress. Then Squarespace and a small, poetry community on IG. I totally relate to the feeling of giving yourself over to the sparks (I also have a graveyard for business ideas haha). So, so relatable!
I just published a new post where I copied your idea Tania. Hope you don’t mind. 🙈 (I gave you credit.)
That's totally fine Cris! So glad my post inspired yours 😊
How cool that you have satiated your creative drive in so many ways! And fun that you have circled back to blog-style creation. Your comment about the “wishlings” (cute name) made me wonder if we need to coin a word for Substack friends. 😆
Ooh interesting idea. Substacklings? 🤣
We're in the same boat! The social atmosphere and community on here so far is amazing and far better than what I could obtain with my old blog. I hope you enjoy your Substack journey ❤️