With The Armorer finally going dark there aren’t too many folks from the heydey of blogging still around.
So whose left?
Well John DuMond of Nobody Move is still writing, and doing so with much more regularity than myself. I’m a frequent lurker there and rarely comment but I still like his work, especially his true crime pieces.
Harvey too, is also still running over at Bad Example. Again I lurk but do not comment often. Mostly because I have a hard time finding time to do much more than quickly read any more with work and school.
Laughing Wolf has been much more creative than I posting quite regularly.
Stephen Sherman aka The Commissar still runs his Ace Pilots page, but his Politburo Diktat is long gone.
Teresa and Technicalities is still alive and kicking
Doc at DocInTheBox also posts occasionally.
T1G of Drunken Wisdom is another sporadic like myself.
EricSWG of StraightWhiteGuy also writes sporadically, and well as always when he does.
The Conservative UAW guy last posted in May.
Nidonemo is still active thankfully.
The Ministry of Minor Perfidy is another who has not posted since May
Slobokan has been silent since April
All of the Northwest Arkansas Bloggers are gone save for myself.
With the exception of a few holdouts such as Blackfive, Grims Hall, This Aint Hell and Murdoc Online most of the old groups are gone.
Since I started writing online back in 1997 I have seen the web undergo a lot of social changes. From mIRC to OTC sites such as Tripod and Geocities, to the MySpace and Blog Heydeys.
All the folks I have listed above, for the vast majority I interact with via Facebook with regularity. They get tired of the spammers, the Chinese hackers, the internet drama, and the “Take this down or we’ll sue you!” crowd.
Its hard to blame them. I’ve been threatened with at least 4 lawsuits in over 15 years of writing on line. I’ve gotten more hate mail than I can shake a stick at. Its one reason I have rarely if ever used my real name online: the fact is there are just some plain old fashion sick people out there.
But I have also met some fabulous people, made great connections. Been introduced to some legends, and people who I consider friends today.
Blogs may be going to the way side, and one day it is entirely possible that this site too may go dark (though I have no immediate plans to do so) but until that time its much like digital cave drawings. People have evolved, maybe not for the better, but their digital social culture has definitely swung towards the instant gratification world of Facebook and G+. Even I use them.
But I can’t put down my keyboard, not entirely. I feel like if I do, a little piece of me might die with it.