Once Upon a Time in Blogland

I have been blogging since the autumn of 2005, which I guess almost makes me a bit of a veteran. It's actually somewhat surprising that the whole genre has not entirely died even though the quiet dissapearance of many once popular blogs could make you believe that. 

It could be that I just wasn't aware of them back then, but I don't think that many make-up and shopping blogs were around in the first half of the last decade. What with my daily "purchase of the day" mention I definitely would have been just as interested in other people's hauls as I am now.

As it was, I got my daily dose of blogs from the blogs you see in the picture above. Every single one was written by expatriates. There was also another one by a German journalist couple who lived in Yemen, but I can't remember the URL. As I have mentioned before, it was Novala who got me into blogging and hers is a blog I still regularly check even if it is hardly updated. Hers is actually one of two blogs of the above which are still alive. The other one is la Coquette's, but there's not much activity going on there, either.

Back then I was in my "Slovenian phase" (Novala and I actually met in a Slovenian language class. It is sad, but very true that I have since forgotten the little I learnt.) and therefore three of the blogs had a Slovenian aspect: the (then) fiercely popular Glory of Carniola, written by an American expat in Maribor, the deliciously bitchy blog by a Slovenian girl in Brussels  and the blog by a Slovenian in Japan whose only "drawback" was the fact that it was...erm written in Slovenian, too. Speaking of Japan, I really loved Tokyo Girl's now private blog with its witty observations of life in Tokyo by an English woman married to a German.

My favourite, however, was Petite Anglaise, whose life sometimes seemed to show strange parallels to mine. Her emotional turmoil aside, I could really identify with the fact that she was bored out of her mind by her day job and was looking forward to putting down whatever bugged or excited her in her blog. FCN was a regular reader, too, and we would discuss the latest post like a soap-opera episode. "Petite" has since published two novels (which I have read, but not found that great to be honest) and retired from blogging.

I can't help wondering if the decline in expat blogs is linked to the rise of Facebook. In a way, blogs are no longer the most efficient platform for keeping your friends and family updated with your life and writing a decent blog post definitely takes more time than a status update on a social network and the upload of a few photos.

Another phenomenon I've noticed lately is that for many bloggers the amount of subscribers seems to be the ultimate driver. Personally, I can't relate at all to people writing that without their subscribers "I'd have given up long ago" and find this statement sad. Sure, there is an element of exhibitionism behind writing a public blog rather than scribbling in your little notepad and hiding it in the bottom of your drawer, but I still love blogging even though the number of readers has not really evolved much over the past 6 years and I have not become rich from advertising.

Speaking of dormant blogs, hint, hint!