Instagram - or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

June 10, 2026

In 2026, blogging feels really weird.

Even though contemporary social media has brought people closer together, to the point where some people are comfortable posting their government identification on X, there’s something strangely resonant to me about blogging. It’s a strange hobby to have nowadays, and I can’t wait to see how people’s brows furrow when I mention I’ve started this thing.

I was coming into consciousness right at the tailend of the blogging era of the internet, when Blogspot was at its height, and even then I didn’t interact with blogs that much. I was too busy playing Lego Batman 1 on the Xbox 360 to read about how ethnic people were getting on their international travels. But I’ve been contemplating the idea of this blog for a while now.

It feels, to me, analogous to the comebacks of physical media; vinyls, cassettes¹, DVDs, even VHS, if you hate watching movies. In the same way some users have become frustrated with streaming services² and retreated back to the better ways of the better days, I feel frustrated with social media.³

I hate that social media apps have basically become quicksand traps that people have been tricked into thinking they’re okay being suffocated by. I hated that if you asked me what the last 5 short-forms I watched were about, right after I stopped watching them, I couldn’t tell you. It feels weird to me, in a way I can’t explain, that so many viral short-forms are just screenshots of tweets or Tumblr posts.

People who know me in real life and/or follow me on Instagram know that I barely post anything. I just don’t have the impulse that others have towards the platform. The days I post a story are probably good days to buy a lottery ticket. I know a lot of people who interact with IG in the same way, only really using it for texting⁴.

Posting something on Instagram always felt a little bit weird to me. It feels like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not when I post, participating in a megalithic culture that sometimes weirds me out. Something I like about blogging is how much effort⁵ I’m putting into formulating this post, and the potential of the medium. Having this website and thinking about what I could do with it makes me really creatively giddy. I like being able to share things exactly how I want them to be shared, I don’t want to deal with numbers more than I already do in my academics.

For me, in 2026, blogging feels really cool.