Short post today: Have you ever wondered what's up with all of the abandoned ME/CFS blogs? If you click through some blog rolls, or for instance, the ME/CFS Blogger Ring's member list, you'll notice a significant portion of the blogs just..... drop off.
You'll notice a last post about an ordinary ME/CFS topic like, say, supplements, dated two or three years ago. And then....silence. Did the author take a sudden turn for the worse? Maybe they just got bored with blogging? Or did they suddenly recover and forget all about their blogs? (I hope!)
Either way, I find it a little unsettling, like the eerie silence of a ghost town. I guess I'll choose to believe that they all recovered....
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ReplyDeleteI think disappearing blogs is just part of the blog world in general. People start a blog with the best of intentions. But you never really know how passionate or interested in something you'll be until you try it.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right, Greyson, that people lose interest. I just wish they would make a final post like, "Hey everybody, I'm alive and well, but I going to take an indefinite break from blogging..." Or something like that.
DeletePeople blog for different reasons. I think if you aren't used to writing frequently it can be a chore for some. Of course with CFS, some might find that it takes too much energy or they give up when they don't have a huge audience. I didn't get a lot of readers until I started posting comments on other peoples' blogs. Then it was a slow trickle but I don't write for the readers. I write for myself and to help myself work through various issues. I've been writing like that long before the internet existed so it is habit. The last two blogs I abandoned I left final posts explaining where I was and why I was gone (I blogged before I got ill) but it is rare that people do that.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to read why other people decided to blog. For me, I find that it changes from time to time - I have many different reasons for blogging about ME/CFS: from keeping my family and friends updated, to making a record for my own personal use, to more "traditional" reasons, like connecting with others.
DeleteI wish more people who abandoned their CFS blogs would do as you said and post a final fairwell. I guess it just puts a tiny little bit of fear in me when I see these abandoned blogs. Makes me think: What happened to them?!
I kind of worry as well. But when I used to write a figure skating blog I saw the same thing happening over there as well. People just quit blogging. I think in one case the mom who was writing stopped because her kid quit skating. I think a woman who blogged about her own skating finally quit skating herself and stopped blogging. Neither of them have left farewell posts so I'll never know for sure what happened to them. So it might not be illness that has stopped the the CFS bloggers. It could be life getting in the way. Or they just aren't writers.
DeleteGood, I'm glad to have your perspective on this. This blog is my first (and will probably be my only) foray into the blogosphere, so I'm new to this stuff.
DeleteEh I've been totally guilty of abandoning a blog without a farewell post. It wasn't a CFS blog or anything, more of a design/fashion blog that I was doing to distract myself from being sick. Eventually I found I was struggling to keep it going & I didn't enjoy it as much so I decided not to put any pressure on myself and just see what happened. What happened was the gaps between posts got bigger & bigger and eventually I just stopped. Maybe I should have written a final farewell post but because I didn't really make a concious decision to finish up I never did.
ReplyDeleteSaying all that I totally agree with you! I do always wonder what has happened when a blog is abandoned but particularly with CFS blogs I wonder if the writer is ok. moral of the story is that next time I abandon a blog I'll say goodbye! ;)