Reports Of My Death….

“The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

I am told, by sources which consider themselves to be reliable, based upon their own opinions, that the personal weblog is dead. It has gone the same way as personal journals, letter writing, reading of physical books and many other things once considered modern, pseudo-intellectual pursuits, now consigned to the era of dinosaurs. As with Samuel Langhorne Clemens, quoted by the New York Journal on 2 June 1897, and his own demise, I believe this reported death of the more personal level of internet publications to be an exaggeration, a misreading of reality, a form of fake news. The overpowering presence of podcasts, newsletter services and sites claiming to be the grassroots organizations of popular opinion does not mean that then original form has disappeared completely, merely that it has taken a backseat. The power of cash, paying into a better search results position, has merely taken the upper-hand for a while, and the chances are that could change again, since people – readers, the real grassroots internet user, researchers – confirm their assessments that highly monetized sites are not necessarily the best source for information, and tend more toward the dramatic, the falsification, the misinformation needed today to stand out and earn a buck by any means possible against stiff competition.

I began writing letters to strangers in the early to mid-Eighties. I have written a regular journal, or diary, since 1988. I have been reading physical books for as long as I can remember. With the advent of the internet and services or software promoting and facilitating online diaries – web logs – I was there as one of the first users and, today, I am still active in all of these pursuits. The names might change now and then, the services used vary one from another, the style and means change with whatever is available, but the core remains the same. A special two-way form of communication through various means which, with subtle and not so subtle changes over time, has been a staple of daily life for many centuries. The scrolls have become bound books, and available to all rather than just the richest, most influential few. Letters – hand written, typed, electronic – have evolved from a means of passing on basic information or orders into miniature life stories for some, into lifelines for others. Diaries have moved from the precious hidden book with a lock, or the expansive recollections of a Samuel Pepys, to an open memory shared and commented upon by others, and imitated by the fake influencers with their invented expertise.

The world, for what it is, for what we make of it, is changing, but that doesn’t mean those things we knew in our youth, or have heard about from our elders have vanished. Sometimes it is a refreshing change to be able to return – or to learn for the first time – and experience the older ways, the tried and trusted ways, the ways of the modern dinosaur for ourselves.

I began this web site as a means of publishing some of my street photography, but always with the thought, in the back of my mind, that it could be far more. The written word has always been important to me, whether from my own pen or that of another, and a weblog is merely another means of publishing, of creating, and it is to this simple form that I wish to return. Travel, literature, opinion, politics, culture, commentary; the good, the bad and the beautiful. And as to our friend Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, I raise my glass and salute his memory. His physical death may well no longer be exaggerated, but he is still, through his art, right there among us.

Image © Urban Camera.