Bloggers @ MindSay

Six years. Happy blogaversary.

Over the blog hill, I would assume, but I recently learned from another blogger that the first Internet journal appeared fifteen years ago in 1994. I have a long way to catch up.

My first entry appeared far too long for the guy who introduced me to MindSay. He had established his account as one of the one-hundred series bloggers. I was blogger number two hundred forty-two. The numbers have since vanished, but I still remember mine from when MindSay used the LiveJournal (LJ) platform. Looking back on the entry... it actually does look too long for an introduction.

But I did not care! This new "blog" space was intended just for me, and I had my small tight-knit network of two blogging friends that included this gentleman who exposed me to my six-year addiction & one of his friends. I searched for other users, and I was able to find verd & beloved Ms. Lo among us veterans. My small audience was perfect at the time. I was able to blog with unabashed solipsism free of any criticism.

After several weeks of virtual anonymity here on MindSay, waves of cliques & droves of teens flocked to my new blogging home. It was only a few years later that I would find out that MindSay really had not yet opened for business at the time that I joined. In any event, I did not know if my small tight-knit network of two blogging friends & I would fit into the new crowd.

Weeks later, my two friends left.

By this point, however, I had befriended some of these eccentric cliques, like Kynthiae, & Tennessee teens, like Hannah. The influx was something like a new generation of bloggers. These bloggers, clearly familiar with the LJ format, had amazing layouts. In fact, they had some amazing entries too. They had this journal thing down to an art, but what made MindSay special was its AIMbot tool to update & its use of channels to meet like-minded bloggers. No wonder MindSay attracted this new generation. During this era, I learned that the best communication with these new bloggers was via reply rather than by writing entries.

Maybe two years passed, and our fearless leaders, Brian & Adam, readied MindSay for a new direction. Versions 1 & 2 of MindSay utilised the LJ platform. Version 3 was MindSay's break from the established format to a new rich text editor with layout templates. Channels disappeared, and the AIMbot tool became obsolete.

So rigid was our creativity that several users left mercilessly altogether.

Focus from blogs eventually shifted to the community. How many more pictures could a user upload for a header image? No longer could we hide portions of our entries behind "cut-tags", and our user images remained frozen. Animated avatars are like a novelty these days. With this new sentiment on MindSay, in poured a new generation of bloggers like Mycki & Shiny. Instead of the edgy, young crowd from the last wave, an older, more mature crowd borne into a blogging site focused primarily on the community ultimately re-grounded me to my initial narcissistic point of blogging. The phenomenon had an opposite effect, and I retreated to my current Friends-Only blog to log all of my daily thoughts & events.


***

Years later, I witnessed the rise & fall of such sites as MySpace & Friendster. I joined & left Friendster years ago because one of my Grenobloise friends used it & left. I never joined the cluttered mess that was MySpace, and after several months of my friends urging me to sign up for a Facebook account, I finally gave in to the peer pressure about two months ago. I doubt I will ever join Twitter though. Facebook became my way to interact with others, and MindSay became my site to quietly vent, sometimes about the Facebook friends. Not that venting is necessarily bad under the name of Andreux, but I certainly talk about them often. Get-togethers, opinions, humourous anecdotes... all of it stored right here for six years.

But now I am seeing some bloggers talk about leaving MindSay, saying that the site is not what it used to be. What was MindSay? Was it a place for the community? Was it a stomping ground for dazzling HTML/CSS skills? Was it the small, humble site that only a few of us knew before the masses invaded with their extraordinary layouts & sophisticated groups?

MindSay for me was always what I made of it. When the teens flooded, the site was a scenester neighbourhood. When the mature crew arrived, I shaped up my blog. One of the simplest, most important lessons that I ever learned about blogging is that the author can make whatever they want of their space:

If he wants to criticise the government by way of political articles, then ravager can;

If she wants to post silly questionnaires & surveys, then Kristin can;

If she wants to document the highs & lows of love, then beccasays can;

If she wants to talk the worst shit possible, then Jayme can;

If he wants to exhibit the prose of amateur fiction, then TheMariner can;

If he wants to post just a picture, then yes, Kuya can;

And if he wants to talk about what to talk about on a blog, then damnit, I can. We can. We all can! There are simply no bounds to the insight within the minds of hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of writers wherever you are. We speak, we scream, we flirt, and we snitch. The fact remains that our voices keep MindSay alive.

And we can bring down a site by leaving too. We can render MindSay into nothing if we make it that way.

The exodus around this place has proven to be cyclical. It is almost a necessary evil for this place to flourish again. Once every two years, the masses threaten to vanish, possibly ushering in the next generation. I never look to the next generation. They always come to me as a surprise.

We control what happens, and when the control is lost, the sentiment falls to chaos. MindSay is not dead. Six years later, I can say that MindSay is more vibrant now than my small company of four friends in the beginning. Since the first day, MindSay has gradually grown to the chatter that we see today. I do not doubt that bloggers will leave, but to say that MindSay is different, I ask what could you expect? To say that MindSay is dead is a skewed vision of what this place is now. Like a living organism, MindSay will change, and the generations will continue to surprise me.

Dear Andreux,

I hope I do you justice.

Your loving author,
Andrew

Current Mood: Proud panda
Current Music: Fragma - "Toca's Miracle"

(Yeah, some LJ things never die)

 

Thank goodness for free speech! It is a freedom worth dying for. And here on "mind say" we practice that right everyday. Posts ranging from "dark and scary" to "sweet as sugar" we enjoy a wide range of topics. We have our favorite bloggers and those who annoy us.We search for titles under top blogs that interest us and avoid those we know are spam or that are of questionable content  according to our beliefs and sensitivities.
We have cranks , crack heads ,Christians ,and atheisists, undecideds, straight, gay, lesbians and transgender,young , old and inbetween, open minded , closed minded and no brainers, the list goes on and on.
With posted pictures and video we are not faceless nor voiceless but yet we still are strangers. Other than my daughter in law I would know none of you were I to meet you on the street..unless...you began to speak, to voice your opinions, to tell your stories. Then, some of you I would know. Because I am beginning to know you better everyday, by reading your words, by hearing your heart . By getting in touch with that faceless part of you...your mind.
Everyday you present a piece of yourself by bringing to the table a piece of you through your words.I may never know your face, but little by little I'm really beginning to know some of you intimately.
Some of you I like, some of you suck (LOLL) some of you are just to sugary  for my taste ( I like a little salt with my sugar)!But still I read you for "balance".
I know some of you better than my neighbors because through your blog I learn so much more about you. Most neighbors just say "Hi..how are you? Looks like a nice day! Bye!" But here , I learn you inner most thoughts, secrets, beliefs and stories. You share your house, your living room and sometimes your bedroom. It's so much easier to speak your heart through written word isn't it? I think most people are more "real" through their blogs. Although some of the "oh so sweet" or "ah so dark" people seem a bit "fake".
We're all wearing a bloggers mask here. We can be real, or we can be someone we choose to be and no one knows the truth...empowering isn't it.
As for me , I choose to be real. What I write is what I feel and who I am (that day...and that's always subject to change).

I was reading a blog today that covers all kinds of news. Chris Abraham is the author and he has lots of interesting articles to please a wide spectrum of readers. One article that caught my eye was about crypto-christians. He didn't say much, but what he said was enough for me to want to find out more. Adopting the world's ways and finding every loophole so that we can fit in seems to be the norm. You can't tell many Christians from others in this day and age. I am glad that Chris brought the article to my attention. My impression of Chris is that he doesn't like to beat around the bush. He is smart, concise, and worth reading.

Speaking of Christians, there is a blog carnival that has just been released by my friend Cass. Check out the Carnvial of the Redeemed. When she told me about it, I immediately thought of you folks here. I know some of you might want to get in on the Carnival.