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It’s kind of crazy that my last blog for Fuzzable was six years ago (and the first was nine years ago!). This website was originally a project I ran alongside my friend Lana Vu when we were teenagers. We launched it in 2008, when I was 13, and wrote about our lives, posted Photoshop and web design tutorials and interacted with our readers in the comments section. The internet, blogging and life were all much simpler back then. Fast forward to February 2017, and I’ve decided it’s time to start blogging again.
I re-launched Fuzzable with a group of awesome writers from CelebMix at the start of this year, and it’s been so much fun. I’ve contributed a couple of pieces to the site, but the majority of the content has been lovingly created by one of the fabulous Fuzzable team.
One thing we’ve been trailing from day one is Fuzzable Blogs, an area of the site where each of our writers can have a moment to call their own once a month. We’ve all been allocated our own days, and post an update on our lives. My date was supposed to be the fifth of each month, but I really struggled to motivate myself and write something interesting.
Although I’ve always been into writing (I’ve been blogging since 11, studied journalism at university and worked as a copywriter after I graduated), I’ve never really been into blogging about myself. Most of my writing experience was centred about a brief, a subject or an aim – having free rein and no real purpose for a blog is a little alien to me.
I always cringe when I read about other people’s life experiences, particularly when they exaggerate their experiences or try to show off. I guess I cringe so much because that’s how I used to blog. When I was younger, I found solace in talking about myself to strangers on the internet, accepting their sympathies and making my dull teenage life appear more interesting – and more dramatic – than it really was.
One day, and I can’t remember when, I deleted all traces of my blogs and personal content online, and decided to become a more private person. I think I read back over something I’d written and didn’t really recognise who I was. It made me feel a little embarrassed, and so I decided I would no longer post every little part of my life online for others to read about.
Social media was also a big part of my youth. I tweeted more than 200,000 times before I deleted my Twitter handle. I remember during summer holidays and on evenings after school, I’d sit on my MacBook and tweet as much as I could until I went to ‘Twitter jail’ and then set a timer on my phone to come back an hour later and do it all over again. Tragic.
Looking back, it’s crazy how much time I spent online when I was growing up. It was definitely a crutch for difficult things I had to go through, but I sometimes think about how my youth would have been different if I’d spent less time hunched over a laptop and more time in the real world. Fast forward a few years, and it seems like my ‘internet addiction’ is now the norm for young people. Everybody seems to spend more time than ever on their phones and on social media, and I look on with a ‘been there, done that’ attitude. I still love the internet, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve learned how to live without it – I’d rather spend the weekend outdoors with my dog than sat on my own writing an article.
So now, feeling inspired by the incredible talent that is the Fuzzable team, I’ve decided to start blogging once again. I’m not sure what I’m going to talk about – there’s a lot going on in my life right now – but I’ll try my best to be open, to be honest, and to give you a slice of who I am. And, hopefully, I won’t make you cringe. Check back soon for my next instalment!
Before you go: how would you define your relationship with the internet? Do you rejoice in posting every minute detail of your life on social media, or are you more reserved like me? Let me know in the comments section or by tweeting @Fuzzable. See you soon.
