bring back the blog era

I miss the blog era.

To be honest, I’m not sure when peak blog era was, but I remember it was when I started my company back in 2015 that I discovered blogs—I had known a little about blogs because a lot of rap had been being shared and discussed via blogs, but I wasn’t reading multiple blogs until I was able to fully embrace social media thanks to my professional independence.

I loved how blogs could serve as a place for serious writing right next to funny videos.

Some blogs had a regular cadence.
Some blogs were sporadic.
Some had great design.
Some had basic design.
But, they all had their own vibe and style.

They were authentic.

Back then, blogs weren’t so focused on generating revenue as the primary goal. Sure, people were placing ads on their pages, sharing their products, and using it as a way for potential customers and clients to find them. But in peak blog era, they were outlets for expressing creativity, sharing ideas, thinking and processing out loud, and finding your people.

They felt genuine.

Now, most people are writing on Substack, Beehiv, or another platform that takes away the authenticity of design—not necessarily the content, but the style and vibe feel very similar.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with Creators making money from their content—I mean, I hope that my content is a part of my business from a revenue standpoint in the future. I want Creators to get paid, and I happily support a number of my favorite writers. But for me, the publishing platforms feel more business than creative. I have a Substack, but I use it simply as another distribution channel for the AlignedLife Blog that lives on my website.

It doesn’t have the same feeling.

Every so often, I have a reason to hop on my first blog, All About Your Benjamins, and scrolling through it brings back so many memories. It is the beginning of rediscovering my creativity. I can scroll the pages and see the Creator in me searching for it Self, trying different styles of writing, exploring different topics, launching a podcast, and starting to do videos.

It was a tough decision to stop writing on All About Your Benjamins because I loved it so much. It was mine, started from scratch, and there were no rules about what I could do with it. But I felt that the legacy of All About Your Benjamins was no longer aligned with where I was going, although the seedlings of The Authentic Life can be found in the posts of All About Your Benjamins.

I’ll never take the site down—it is a perfect representation of the evolution of my Authentic Life, with many great posts and tons of pictures and videos of the boys as they’ve grown up. It still gets visits each day, which is crazy to me.

There have been some glimpses of the blog era lately.

J. Cole launched The Algorithm on his website and shared posts about his album The Fall Off. He also hosted a series of conversations in which he and his close friend Ib reminisced about his career, all the way back to the mixtapes.

Sadly, he hasn’t posted since April, but scroll through The Algorithm, and you’ll be brought back to the days of blogs.

I think the Creator economy will bring the blog era back, maybe in a different form, but with more people seeking independence, blogs and Creator-owned platforms and content allow them to interact with their fans and supporters more directly.

Look at what Joe Budden has done on Patreon—not a blog, but very much in the energy of it.

I’m going to do my part to rejuvenate the blog era.

I’m not launching a new website, but I’m going to be posting more actively here on the Omens section of my website, and the feeling of the Omens will be more like the blogs I grew up on.

I’ll be sharing music.
I’ll be sharing fashion.
I’ll be sharing movies.
I’ll be sharing pictures.
I’ll be sharing other podcasts and content.
And I’ll be sharing posts with ideas I think will help you pursue your Authentic Life that don’t fit the AlignedLife blog's money-and-finance theme.

To kick things off, I’m going to make it a goal that I post a new Omen every day. There is no shortage of things for me to post—I just kind of forgot that the Omens were my place to share them.

So welcome back to the era where blogs were creative, fun, informative, and authentic!

Keep pursuing,

JC

One of my favorite things to do on All About Your Benjamins was to post a video, mostly rap, that somehow connected to the post. I now do this on my IG Stories—each Story has a song that I intentionally picked, never random.

I think I’ll do this here on the Omens.