Old school blogging and missing the community we used to have

I've been hearing rumblings in the blogging world.  It started with this call to arms, which then led to the creation of this community.  Just Google the term "old school blogging" and you will end up with a myriad of results dating from 2015 to 2018 (and that's just the first page of results).  This tells me that there are plenty of bloggers/readers who are missing the community that old school blogging facilitated.

And then a few days ago, The Bloggess, wrote a post entitled Calling All Bloggers, which was inspired by this post (and when I dove deeper I found this post)...all of which highlighted what many of us have been saying...where did the community go?

I can't say for sure whether or not I am an "old school" blogger - but I've been doing this fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants blog since about July 2009 (over NINE years?! Really?!  Somehow this amazes me),  I think that means I qualify. Here is what I remember about "old school" blogging...

Each blog had a community...people kept coming back for more because they loved the interaction.  I've written a million several posts about comments.  They were vital to blogs - back in the day...that's what kept us writing posts...because we wanted to connect.

I miss Texan Mama who wrote Who Put Me in Charge of These People? (which has since morphed into Gretchen Willis Photography (she is amazing with a camera!),  FourSons (which has completely disappeared from the interwebs...no amount of Googling can find her - sure I know where she resides on FaceBook, but I want to respect her privacy), Jerry from Gently Said was lost in the whole Blogger/Yahoo issue, which two years later is STILL NOT resolved (sending very disapproving looks to both companies along with a lecture to "play nice!"), From The Inside...Out - last I heard she moved to California and was loving it; Hyperbole and a half has also disappeared, as has Laundry Hurts My Feelings and Pearl...and many, many, many more.

If you look to your right, you will notice that I still have these listed on my "blog roll" (which is what we called it back in the day - these were the blogs that we loved and wanted to share) because I keep hoping one day they will pop back up.

We had a lot of fun back then.  We would share "awards" and tag other bloggers.  When someone new would pop up in the comments, the protocol was to go visit them and say hi - and possibly follow.  We would create tags, like the What's In Your Bag and tag other bloggers to play along.

I think part of the problem now is - people just aren't commenting as much as they used to - for whatever reason.  Maybe they are shy.  Maybe they are thinking, they don't know me and probably don't want to hear what I have to say.  Or, well, who knows why?

But here's the thing.  The person writing the blog is putting their thoughts out there; reaching for a connection.  Starting the conversation.  So it only makes sense that they would be delighted to get a response, right?  I mean, if the blogger wasn't looking for a connection they would either set their blog to private or not blog at all and just journal.

I know I haven't been the best at commenting lately but that changes now - I am going to attempt to comment on every post I read - even if the blog in question isn't one that I consistently follow - because, honestly?  I think that might be the way to find ourselves back to that community feeling we we used to have.