This post will be crossposted to my tumblr (I'm still not sure if a tumblr is a blog), as it's only tangentially technical.
A long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and many of even my older current clients weren't born, I, as many of my generation did, used LiveJournal to process my feelings about things. I wrote, even, actual writing. I remember once being told I could write a book of drabble. I'm still not sure if that was a compliment.
As Twitter gained a foothold, and we had the novelty of receiving updates via SMS, longform blogposting was augmented by, but not displaced by, microblogging. They stopped sending SMSes, and we started using clients - ceTwit in my case, for a while - and external services like TwitPic sprung up around making images available to twitter users by shortform URL. Those services were eventually made redundant when Twitter added image support, some time in the very early 2010s, I think. I was still using LiveJournal.
Facebook on the other hand, was far more insidious and explosive. Facebook came at the moment that we were hungering for a unifying force so that we didn't need twenty sites to keep track of everyone we cared about or had a celebrity crush on. Facebook displaced LiveJournal as the place where we blathered out our life updates. It had a strong network effect as our friends and family all signed up. My mother has a Facebook page, for fucks' sake. My mother never signed up for anything on the internet, and Facebook's siren song entranced even her. (She recently friended me.)
But it was all too much. Facebook was built for mobile, and mobile isn't really built for longform publication. Just longform consumption. Eyes on the screen longer so we can serve you more ads.
LiveJournal died for my social circle as everyone moved their lives to Facebook - a bit more curated, even the messy moments having this kitschy presentation of being teachable and not an absolute disaster - our social presence became a little less honest and a little more on display for all the world to see. LiveJournal never had push notifications. I get push notifications now if my friends post stuff. I had to seek it out and be in a mood to engage before. To the LiveJournals I gave my attention willingly. From Facebook, it is demanded.
I started my personal tumblr with the intent of having a place to post those sort of things. I didn't use it. I don't know why. But I'm having some thoughts again that deserve ventilation. Whether that means that they're aired and examined, or they're subjected to a shooting, doesn't matter. They ought to be out of my head. They're going there. Buckle up. (He says, not knowing if he'll stick with it.)