What Modern Bloggers Could Learn From The Early Bloggers

Ah, blogging… It sounds like something you might suffer from after eating too many sausages at breakfast. 

Yet, here you are, peering at glowing screens, searching for inspiration. Back in the day, we didn’t have ‘influencers’—we had to influence people the old-fashioned way, with a large hat and the threat of interpretive dance.

But enough of my virtual shenanigans. Let us journey back… not to the days of quill and parchment (my handwriting is a health hazard), but to the valiant souls who bravely penned the earliest of blogs—back when “posting” meant something you did with a letter and a fussy pigeon.

Lesson One: Write Like No One (and Everyone) Is Reading.
Early bloggers didn’t have audiences of thousands. They wrote because they had something to say, whether the universe listened or not. 

If you’re crafting blog posts for applause or praise or sponsorship from a vegan toothpaste company, you may have missed the rooty-tooty point…

Write what you feel. Write about your burnt toast, your dreams, your midnight battle with a sock monster. You’ll find kindred spirits (or other sock-monster victims).

Lesson Two: Be Delightfully Human.
Algorithms may rule the world (and possibly my toaster), but the pioneers charmed people by being deeply, incorrigibly themselves. Rambling, digressing, contradicting themselves—what joy there is doing that. No, there ain’t. Yes, there is! 

Don’t sand off your weird edges to fit some internet shape; celebrate them. Somewhere out there is a reader who says, “Aha! Someone else who collects spoons and names their houseplants after distant relatives.”

Lesson Three: Experiment!
Early bloggers weren’t constrained by rules because the rule-book hadn’t been invented (it was still locked in a desk drawer next to the fountain pen and a tin of potted ham). 

They played with formats—long, short, poetic, illustrated by matches stuck in jam. Write a post that’s only questions. Try a limerick about taxidermy. The pioneers plucked up the courage to be different; follow their lead. After all, if you get stuck, you can always blame it on your dog.

Lesson Four: Spark a Conversation, Not a Riot.
In days of yore, “comment sections” were polite affairs—think afternoon tea, but online. Rather than hurling digital tomatoes, pioneers encouraged discourse, banter, and hearty debate (“I disagree, sir, but your semicolon usage is impeccable.”)

Channel this spirit. Foster engagement, not rage. You’ll feel better. Your hair will thank you.

So, digital scribbler, in the words I might have said if I owned a computer:
Blog as though no one is reading, smile as though the comment trolls cannot find you, and above all—never, ever let the sock monster get the last word.