Resuscitating a dead art (ruminations on "the blogosphere")

The blogosphere, as the old internet knew it, died a painful, slightly prolonged death a long time ago. It's not something I'm fully aware of, and I'm sure there were a lot of different factors at play, but I think we can all sort of agree that the NSFW ban on Tumblr was, in a sense, the last domino. After that, in one swift move, Tumblr had ceased to be relevant, outside of a few stragglers. Believe me, I tried that shit when I was younger and I just couldn't get into it. But I did read a lot of old blogs and such when I was growing up so maybe that qualifies me to say things about it.

But see, at the same time, Tumblr was sort of the last bastion of the old internet. When you look at it retrospectively you could say that it was way better than the dismal reputation it had achieved over the years. Because most people only ever saw the overly-politically-correct "surface" of the website, there were several subcultures that just went completely unnoticed by larger scenes, the external internet, and for the most part even the moderators. A lot of it was really evil and heinous shit but I do think there's a case to be made for crediting the current boom in online music/art/piracy/archival projects to these niche subcultures.

Ironically I do kind of think this is why nobody really remembers anything from Tumblr aside from the old and decrepit (read: thirtysomethings), and that heavily contributes to why it's often seen as a failure. It's a classic double-edged sword. But I do find myself longing for a period where techbros hadn't quite figured out how to use the internet efficiently without making themselves look like idiots. Which they are, don't get me wrong. I guess while I'm still here, I might as well mention LiveJournal which just sort of happened and then died. Apparently it's owned by a Russian corporation now and thus is really popular over there. Huh. I never in a million years would've expected that. 

As for today? I suppose this site (and others of its ilk) recreates the feeling of the blogosphere respectably. It's never gonna be as big as it was back in the day but hey, it tries! And so far it appears to be pretty successful! 

TL;DR God damn you Mark Zuckerberg