Is Blogging DEAD?
Finally, the uncomfortable question I have been trying to avoid for many years now.
Is blogging in general and travel blogging in particular dead?
I have never been a professional blogger nor was I ever a regular blogger churning post after post from come rain or shine from airports, hotel lobbies, train tops, and toilet seats. I have always considered myself to be a hobby travel blogger who tried to extend his journey by reliving it by writing the blog. That is why you will find many blog posts on desi Traveler are more like I am talking to myself sometime in the future as I relive the good old days.
I would give to myself that at one time I was very passionate about writing this blog and keeping it in top shape. But somewhere sometime in the past, the exact time & date slowly eroded from memory to ease the pain.
Initially, I did not realize that I had reduced writing, maybe it was deliberate as I tried to metamorphose into a dancing diva as the ever-changing algorithm of apps like Instagram demanded. But that was not to be the case as neither dancing nor 10-second storytelling is my forte. Don’t get me wrong I have the highest degree of respect for people who were able to trade their pens for dancing shoes & gyrate in front of everything and every situation from graves of dead emperors whitewashed as monuments of love to jump with joy in the middle of a deserted road in Ladakh.
For some time I only did the monthly travel calendar as it kept me motivated enough to do at least one post a month. But in the post-Covid era as my library of images dwindled and I did not travel to new places for 2 years at some stage that too stopped.
At some stage, I realized that this is not happening to me but a lot of very active bloggers have either stopped writing or shifted to Instagram or Youtube or both to share their travel stories. Some of them succeeded big time and some of them are still struggling but continue to try. ( My best wishes to both the groups ).
All this led me to believe that blogging is dead and I do not enjoy blogging. But every once in a while I will stumble upon a blog post by fellow bloggers who were still writing and sharing their posts. Once in a while I will also be tagged by them in the post or will receive a mail or message to read and share their post. I would read these posts and would tell myself that I should start writing again.
But then again the years of inaction will take over and that promise I made to myself will remain unfulfilled. But somewhere the urge to start writing was still lingering in me and I wanted to write but the thought that nobody would read my post kept on haunting me.
But then I decided to go back to the beginning of this blog when I started writing knowing very well that nobody would be reading my blog. And every once in a while when somebody commented on my blog it was like receiving my very own OSKAAR Award for blogging.
So I decided to start writing again for the sheer joy of writing as I started traveling again and also publish the many untold travel stories that I still have. I have been trying to motivate myself by telling myself again and again:
- Write because you enjoy it.
- If you write a blog post readers will come
- Even if the readers don’t come you should write because you enjoy it.
- Read point number 2 and 3 again till you start doing point number 1.
- Start writing because you enjoy it and the loop goes on.
So finally today When I logged into the blog admin panel after ages my motivation was waiting inside the blog.
When I logged in I found more than 40 comments were waiting to be answered. While most of the comments were JUNK Comments by professional SEOs who are trying to get linkbacks from desi Traveler, it still made me think
- These SEOs are visiting my blog and writing comments ( or doing it with the help of some automated script/software). And the fact that these guys were doing it made me realize that there must be something about blogging that these professionals know that I don’t really
- Then in my blog mailbox that I get via the contact form, there were more than 100 requests for guest posts/ advertisement charges queries etc.
- But the best part was finding 5 messages from budding bloggers who wanted tips from me on writing blogs and starting a blogging journey. 2 of them even wanted to know if I would hire them as interns for desi Traveler.
While not all of these things happened in a sequence or exactly how they are mentioned in the post but they happened and they mean a lot to me and that is what matters to me.
So while I was looking for an answer if Blogging is DEAD Or not the answer to the question was hiding inside my blog itself in the form of comments and queries.
So ladies and gentlemen I am happy to announce that blogging is DEAD. Long Live Blogging. Hope to be more regular in my travels and writing the desi Traveler Blog :).
Shubh Yatra Bon Voyage Happy Travels
