Magazines filled with beautiful images and glossy pages. I have been a lover of the magazine since I got my first copy of Seventeen about the time I started junior high. I would pour over the pages for hours upon hours, noticing the tiniest details in both articles and ads. I had a large basket in my room where my collection of favorites stayed, just so I could continue to flip back through them long after the date of publication. This went on for many, many years.
With advent of the internet and so many images being available for perusal online, I found myself discontinuing the practice of subscribing to magazines or grabbing a copy at the supermarket checkout. Instead, I browsed Pinterest and then Instagram for visual inspiration, for everything from fashion to decorating to recipes. My need for that was quickly satisfied by creating dozens and dozens of Pinterest boards to save images and link back to content to view at will.
But, in the last couple of years, there has been a not so subtle shift in content on both of those platforms and Facebook. A definite shift away from still images to all sorts of advertising and video silliness. I no longer feel any sort of trust for so much online content, knowing that it was only created to generate likes and follows, with some of it being completely fabricated. And don’t even get me started on the whole “reels” thing. If I wanted to watch that sort of nonsense, well, I would be on TicToc ~ and I am not!
I started blogging on Janie’s Porch back in 2009, on the free platform, Blogspot. Through the first few years, I blogged regularly ~ even maintaining daily postings through the full month of November one year for a series on gratitude. It was a fun and creative outlet and I enjoyed the interaction with readers and other bloggers. Comments were much more frequent and common.
But, along came the slick and monetized blogs. I found myself avoiding those blogs I had previously enjoyed because I could no longer scroll through posts without pop up advertisements becoming a distraction. Over time, my own posting became more and more sporadic as I spent more time on social media. Until last year, when I decided to give it another go because I yearned to write longer, more creative and thoughtful posts. When I decided to return to blogging, I did some research and opted for a different blog platform to have more ownership and control over my blog.
And now that I think more about ownership and control of my posting, I turn to examine social media ~ with much more skepticism. I read daily about accounts that have been shut down by Facebook or Instagram for very little or unknown reasons. Influencers who lost all their followers and access to their account for unexplained reasons. The algorithm has become so convoluted and controlling that no one actually sees “organic” growth anymore. Also, once you put content on there ~ well, it’s theirs, not yours anymore. People can even use your photos and videos in their own reels unless you go to great lengths to prevent it. And I have to ask myself, why? Why participate in that? The platforms are an antithesis of what they were in the beginning. Not much is original ~ it is mostly copycat content with an abundance of ads.
Lord knows, I don’t fit the mold for social media anymore. Nor do I even want to try. It is too fast paced and restrictive for me. It demands conformity, not originality. I may still post there occasionally, but I simply refuse to play the algorithm game or fight the trolls who feel the need to make negative comments from behind the anonymity of their keyboard. (Am I the only one who thinks people have gotten so much ruder in just the last couple of years???)
So, here on the blog, I put my focus on the written word. It’s not a short game or popularity contest for me ~ it is creative process. Much as I work to make our home cozy and comfortable for those who enter, I want to create a place here that invites one to enter and gives them a reason to stay for a bit. It is a reflection of me and my heart, offered up freely to those who want to take a moment to pause and join me. No ads, no promotions, no dictating terms to abide by. I invite your comments and thoughts, unless you’re just here to argue ~ in that case, please just pass me by.
I leave you with this image I snapped on an early morning walk through the neighborhood. A bird serenaded me from the high wire as a tiny sliver of moon still hung in the sky above. That, my friends, was a beautiful moment and an image that I wanted to preserve and remember.
Welcome to the porch... 