why i started this blog
Lately, I’ve felt like Instagram has slowly been draining the life out of me, which is odd considering how much I’ve curated my experience on the platform. I’ve whittled down to a very select few who has access to my dump account; I only follow accounts that inspire me or help me learn something new; I’ve even permanently deleted my public/main account since I didn’t like how logging in to that account made me feel. I think the amount of time I spend on Instagram is also significantly less than the average user (maybe around 30 mins a day).
And yet, I still feel drained. I’m tired of all the advertisements being shoved into my face every few posts or stories. I’m tired of how the app is designed to encourage doomscrolling; how easy it is to keep scrolling infinitely on your feed or on reels (the latter of which was particularly frustrating since I’d supposedly weaned myself off of Tiktok last year). I keep an Instagram account to be updated with my friends, but no matter how much of their stories or posts I see, nothing really seems to stick —everything you see just blurs together and gets lost in the sea of content that I’ve consumed. I don’t think I’ve connected with friends the way I wanted to/thought I’d be able to through my dump account.
Then, I stumbled upon this Substack post by Maja of Velvet Noise on why everyone should start a blog.
Though, just to be clear, I’ve loved blogging even before reading that Substack post. I first came across the concept of blogging in a Readers Digest magazine about Anya Peters, who started blogging about her experience being homeless and having to live in her car, and how blogging helped turn things around for her. I’m not sure why this article stood out to me so much, but after that, I created my own Blogspot account.
Then, come 2011, and I discovered the glorious world of Tumblr. I was immediately hooked. I spent hours customizing my blog theme, making friends with other bloggers online, sharing what happened in my day or anything that was on my mind. Reading was my first love as a child, and it made sense that I’d fall in love with a social media platform that centered so much on reading. I loved reading about others’ peoples lives, seeing the art they created and what they did on a given day. And, of course, I loved sharing about mine. Sadly, I have little record of this time of my life since even back then, I had the habit of permanently deleting my blogs so that I could start over — a proclivity I still have as of writing this.
After Tumble fizzled out, the next time I regularly kept an actual blog was back in 2021-2022. I had a Wordpress website where I posted book reviews and monthly recaps that was only accessible to me and people I chose to share it with (so, basically just 1-2 other people on Stan Twitter at that time. Isay, if you’re reading this, you were one of those people haha), but I ended up deleting that blog too. I don’t even remember why anymore. Thankfully, I had the foresight to save everything I’ve posted there.
And earlier this 2025, I actually created a personal blog using a more indie platform, because I did get a bit frightened at the thought of putting everything out on a platform only to have major corporations possibly discontinue the service or make changes to the point that the entire platform becomes unusable (Tinyletter as an example of the former, X/Twitter as the best example of the latter). And I did think that I needed more practice in doing things that are for my eyes only, as I do have the tendency to want validation from others whenever I create.
But after reading the Substack article on having a blog, I decided I wanted a cross between a blog (something with an archive of all my posts that people could explore around, something customizable) and a newsletter (something that gets sent to one’s inbox). I particularly wanted something like a newsletter, because I’ve experienced firsthand the anticipation and pleasant surprise I feel whenever the monthly Letterloop with Dan and Camille appears in my inbox. Emails are the app I stray away from, particularly because it reminds me of work and also contains so much junk, but the group newsletter makes it feel like I’ve found a diamond among rocks, and I want others to experience that same feeling of pleasant surprise when they see my name in their inbox (I hope…..).
And that Substack (plus the article that led me to that Substack, which was about ways to be a better friend/to foster connection) made me realize that creating my own Substack for friends might actually fulfill what I’ve been hoping to get from Instagram: a better, more intimate way of connecting online.
I think having this encourages me to ruminate more as well and to let things linger. I think Instagram (and basically almost every social media platform, Substack not exempt) rewards frequency of posting to stay relevant/to appear on others’ feeds, and not posting as frequently affects the visibility of your posts; but with this kind of newsletter setup, this isn’t something I have to worry about. I can take as much time as I want with these — I can let things simmer for days or weeks or even months — I can think more, organize my thoughts better, and, of course, write more (no more 2.2k character limit!).
There’s still a long way to go when it comes to managing my relationship with Instagram (I need to take a better look at my art and food accounts and think if it’s worth keeping it up still) and with social media in general, but starting this blog feels like going back to an Internet era when things felt new and cool and interesting and fun. I hope you have fun here!