My thoughts on loneliness in blogging and online spaces

I’ve been procrastinating on writing this because I didn’t know how to put it altogether. And if you read this, you’ll see that I still didn’t figure it out. But I’d rather put something down because it’s been burning a hole in my to-do list for weeks.

It’s in response to a blog post that gained a bit of buzz a few months ago called Do blogs need to be so lonely? which was followed by Feeling Less Lonely and there were a few responses to it. Mine isn’t as structured but I had a lot of thoughts about it which had ruminated in my head long before I read the articles.

The tl;dr is that I’ve struggled a lot to find “my people” online. I have a lot of interests, some niche and some more popular, and I don’t feel as comfortable in large groups or communities because it’s easy to get lost in conversations that are run by the most popular people. Cliques are everywhere and if you’re not in it, you’re out of it—at least that’s how it feels. If I want to share joy about a thing, I don’t want any friction to that unless the creator got milkshake ducked or something.

Of course, the initial posts were about blogging so I’ve started there but delved into broader topics about online spaces, why Discord is the worst for me, and how individualism is the devil.

Why I started blogging

I started blogging in 2008. I can’t remember what my first blog was called but I remember it having a really long pretensious name and it was on WordPress. Eventually, I got my own domain and self-hosted but it was always a place for me to write whatever I wanted and to express my thoughts at the time. It was very much an outlet where nobody could tell me what I could/couldn’t write (not that I was writing controversial manifestos or anything).

I shared my posts on social media amongst my peers, back when I had Facebook and people used to engage with blogs a lot more and it felt like I had a genuine readership. Fast forward 17 years and things are so much different. Blogs don’t have the power that they used to, mainly down to a shift in format as people prefer vlogs, podcasts, and short-form videos via TikToks and YouTube Shorts. Blogs are by no means dead and never died in that time period but the more popular audiovisual formats bring in the eyes and the cash so that’s where most people will put their efforts.

Personal bloggers who just wrote about interesting things they discovered or treated their websites as blank diary pages aren’t as popular and now when you mention blogger, it conjures images of beauty/fashion/entreprenureal sites with affiliate links and sponsored posts and brands and ultimate guides. If you get a personal post, it’ll likely have a slant towards something capitalist. Such is the way of marketing these days.

The IndieWeb and cliqueyness

The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web”.

We are a community of independent and personal websites based on the principles of: owning your domain and using it as your primary online identity, publishing on your own site first (optionally elsewhere), and owning your content.

I love the concept of the IndieWeb and what it stands for and I will always champion its principles. But sometimes I wonder whether some communities within it (because nothing is a monolith) feel a bit cliquey? I don’t think that’s the inherent fault of the IndieWeb at all but something I’ve noticed about communities is that there are always groups within them that like to gatekeep, regardless of whether they loud and dominant or not.

I’ve also noticed a lot of talk about how “blogs are back” (reader: they never left), how “you should get a blog” followed by a million recommendations on where to build one (there are arguably too many options) and what blogs are/aren’t and why you should/shouldn’t write things. For anyone on the outside looking in, these are unnecessary barriers to entry. It’s one thing to say that you don’t do certain things but to put them out as suggestions for others does more harm than good. I don’t know if this reflects a wider blogosphere ideology but it makes me uncomfortable and I’ve been doing this stuff for nearly 2 decades!

We should be welcoming and offer everyone the space and grace to write what they want without harming people or punching down and engage with writers whether they’re first-timers or veterans. If people own their own content on their own domains, it should be uniquely there’s and not coloured by arbitrary unwritten rules. I honestly don’t care if you call it a blog or a digital garden as long as you’re writing what you want and enjoy it. Why should anyone care?

Where are the Black personal bloggers?

Okay, this is a bit of a sidestep and I don’t know if this is controversial or going to land me in hot water but I’m gonna risk some L’s and write about it.

I’m a Black personal blogger. Where are all the others? I know you’re out there and I know you don’t just write about beauty/fashion, food, parenting, travel, or how to be an entrepreneur (btw this isn’t shade on any of that; it’s just not what I’m interested in as single interests)! If there’s one collection of voices I’ve been missing in this sphere, it’s Black peoples’ and I have looked over the years so I’m not crowdsourcing here.

I’m particularly interested in finding more Black queer folk in blogging spaces because that represents me a lot more. I will continue to look but for people who showcase bloggers, please consider diversifying your lists! We’re out here!

Special shout out to Olu who is a good friend who is Black and non-binary and write awesome blogs. Their piece on xenial discusses similar themes to my article:

i do try tons of other online spaces, seeking more community and collaborators and fellow conspirators for projects, but i think any group that isn’t pretty immediately welcoming or at least instrumentally useful i give up on pretty quickly. there are a handful of places i’ve stuck around to try to crack what i don’t “get” about the culture, or out of a desire to see if i can find a home there, but it’s rare for me.

a lack of xenial grace is hard to avoid online. you only have so much emotional and time-based bandwidth before a disagreement becomes an actual grievance. on social media platforms, and most big group chats, there aren’t more graceful ways to de-escalate arguments before it comes to ideally blocking or, less ideally, a huge spat.

Not finding your people online

Individualism is killing our people.

If there’s one thing I hate in online spaces, it’s soapboxing. The Internet is a humungous place filled with endless possibilities and ways to connect with people. That can make it hard to find the “right” connection and maybe lead to feelings of isolation. Perhaps people might want to talk out loud without a need for dialogue or engagement and that’s fine—I know I do that a lot. But when you do want a dialogue, what happens when you’re in a supposed community where everyone is a proverbial street preacher?

That’s how I’ve felt in a lot of online spaces. Whether it’s Discord or Bluesky or Twitter when I was on it, it’s been a pain wanting to share joy with someone only to find people make declarations and turn the conversation towards them.

Someone I follow on Bluesky made a very good thread on this and it centred on three things:

• Engage on the same level as someone else if they’re talking about something they like
• Read and re-read what they actually said before responding and check first before critiquing
• Don’t well actually or think someone has forgotten a point if they haven’t expressed it

When I read it, I felt SO seen because it covered three instances that made me leave a Discord.

Discord indeed

The first was when I expressed a love of Golden Sun, only for the conversation turn to how it was “baby’s first RPG” and the general vibe wasn’t as on par with how I felt about the game. I don’t expect everyone to love what I love or at the same level but that comment stuck in my craw.

The second was when I’d mentioned that I’d finished Final Fantasy I as part of my journey through the games in numerical order. I was hoping for dialogue around the game—how did you find it? That’s awesome, congrats! etc. What I got was a single comment, saying it was unusual for me to have entered the series for the first time at the beginning. Okay, and? I tend to start counting from 1 rather than my favourite number, dunno about you!

The final nail in the coffin was when I mentioned that I’d finished Final Fantasy IV and mentioned that it was II for US people to ensure no confusion (the numbering convention for Japan vs. USA was different as the US didn’t get the first two games upon initial release so Final Fantasy I in the US was really Final Fantasy III in Japan). Someone decided to well actually me by saying it was well established now what the version was. Someone jumped to my “defense” and then the conversation went in the direction of naming conventions rather than how I finished a game and I was happy about it.

With these kinds of interactions so commonplace, it makes it hard to express your thoughts and feelings in online spaces and that isolation bleeds into blogging. You start to worry that what you write will either be ignored or, if you have comments, that people will leave unhelpful messages calling you a fool or a noob or that you’ve done something wrong.

Comment sections are a nightmare too. Everyone needs to one-up the other.

Why did you waste my free time by writing this thing that I chose to read? I must tell them how they’ve annoyed me!

Also: there’s nothing worse than making a tongue-in-cheek comment and then it’s taken literally. I’ve had that too and I’ve had to decide whether I explain I was kidding and I know all of the stuff I’m being corrected on or just leave it because the joke already failed to land.

This is why, when people say “join our Discord”, I’m reluctant to do so. It’s just crap for communication if you want to share one thing in one way. And if you come back after a few days and see a conversation you wanted to join in, do you post a reply days late or lament the lost interaction. Bring back forums without the *-isms and *-phobias!

Finding your people online

The best way I’ve found to meeting like-minded people online is still through shared interests but it requires one-on-one conversations. It’s also important be empathetic and understanding in your interactions. People feel lonely for all kinds of reasons and it’s not enough to ask “have you tried talking to people?” if those people are gonna be weird around you.

I still don’t think I’ve necessarily “found my online people” yet. I’ve found individuals and maybe small groups of friends in small communities, connected or not, but not a slightly larger community where I feel on equal footing with others and it’s regularly active and I can jump in at any time and get a conversation going and I feel like I can relate to other people more than I usually do. Is that an impossible ideal? Probably. But I’d rather strive for that than settle for thousands of individuals shouting their hot takes around me. I should not be muting and blocking more than I follow or engage.

How webrings foster connection

Webrings are collection of sites that form a chain or “ring” by linking to one another in a circular format (similar to the above image). They tend to follow a theme and they’re often very welcoming as they’re only as good as their live links. I’m on quite a few webrings and I’ve had a few emails and linkbacks to articles having been part of them which has been awesome.

For the most part, it’s low effort to join and you can similarly explore other people’s blogs and sites and, if you feel inclined, contact those site owners to tell them that you’ve enjoyed their sites. I’ve certainly done this and it’s been nice to get responses.

What makes webrings so good for that level of connection is that it’s not in real time. You’re bound by a theme and you can reach out if you want and in your own time. It’s like having an old school penpal where the wait time is expected and fosters a deeper connection. There’s an intentionality to webrings that isn’t necessarily there in quick 280 character posts or messages that quickly get sent while you wait for an immediate response. I’m happy to wait with this and that also speaks to blogging as well.

Seeking out connection, giving our flowers

I don’t feel a way about emailing someone to say “hey, I like your site!” and I’m sure people enjoy reading it because I reckon a lot of us don’t realise people read our work unless someone tells them. And that’s what we need to do more of: give people their flowers!

Maybe people aren’t writing for validation but it feels great getting it unprovoked. We shouldn’t all be doing things for assumed or invisible audiences. We have the power to reach out and say “you did a thing and I like that thing so keep up the good work”.

Blogging can be lonely but there are ways to break that loneliness. Email a blogger if a piece resonated with you and tell them why. Join a webring and tell a site owner if you think their site was cool. Leave comments on people’s blogs that aren’t necessarily critiques. These are the actions we can take to take the loneliness out and it can be on our terms. It doesn’t need to get parasocial, you don’t have to seek people out on social media and gush, you can just let someone know you liked what they did and keep it moving.

And also enjoy your work. If there’s no base level enjoyment, that lonely feeling will get heavier until you give up or change something. Spread that joy and whimsy.