REACTIVATED
Just got access to this LiveJournal account I've had since high school!
My first post was on 7/22/2001.
I had transferred over to mechanesthesia on Aug 2005, starting a new LiveJournal account. Then in Aug 2010, I transferred all those posts to Blogger where I continued posting until Dec 2010 [with an unpublished draft on Feb 2011]. [I was able to get access both of these accounts back in November.] On Sep 2011, I started a Tumblr blog, but I didn't keep up with it much, as well as another one I didn't do much with.
Apparently I also had mechanesthesia2 which served as a tweet digest via a plugin that stopped working some time in November 2009. I have yet to regain access to that one.
I also had some blogs on MySpace, which I have backed up but never posted, and some on Facebook which were referred to as "Notes" which are no longer a feature, but I may have them backed up too.
After that, I just started using Facebook posts [fka "status updates"] which could be a short post, a long post similar to a blog entry, or resharing content, and there was no differentiation as they all just blended together. Also, resharing content has pretty much dominated and subsumed original content, which was already short and diluted after the "Notes" became undifferentiated and blogging and long posts in general were not a "thing" anymore. But I miss that and want to bring it back...
Not sure how exactly I will use these blog accounts just yet, but I do want to get back to blogging. Also may change the usernames around...
I prefer LiveJournal's UI to Blogger's. I had opted for Blogger because it seemed like the biggest name on the market and it is backed by Google, so there's less of a chance of losing your data if they ever shut down or change hands like what happened with MySpace. But LiveJournal has proved to have staying power. Ideally I can find a way to post to both, or at the very least backup my data regularly.
So in summary, my historical blog accounts have been:
- psychasthenia @ LiveJournal [Jun 2001 - Aug 2005]
- mechanesthesia @ LiveJournal [Aug 2005 - Aug 2010]
- mechanesthesia2 @ LiveJournal [Apr 2009 - Nov 2009] [Tweet Microblog]
- mechanesthesia @ Blogger [Aug 2010 - Dec 2010 or Feb 2011]
- mechanesthesia @ Tumblr [Sep 2011 - May 2018]
- iamobject @ Tumblr [Aug 2013 - May 2014] ["Aesthetic" blog I couldn't figure out what to do with]
One goal I've always had was to centralize all my blog posts to one place...
I had created a separation between this blog from high school and my newer one I started in my early 20's, which have a different tone and aesthetic. This split is represented by my last post with the succedent / antecedent links. But I might just have them all together. If I end up using this one, I'd like to apply the aesthetic formatting of mechanesthesia.
Also want to post all my old MySpace blogs, Facebook Notes, and any of the few subsequent posts I had on Blogger or Tumblr.
At one point I did have a way of tracking my Facebook status updates that were more blog-like or noteworthy by tagging them #exocortex or tagging my other account "Systm Error." Not sure when I stopped using this system, but even though I lost my main Facebook Account "Xvynn," I have backups up until 2019 I can look through. I can look through there to see any that were tagged [or go through the feat of skimming my status updates from 2005-2019 for any which are blog-worthy but untagged].
You can backdate posts and I would like to add a note at the bottom as to where it was originally posted to with a link if available.
I went down this rabbit hole of going back looking for all my accounts and reactivating them when I created a Bluesky account which is a new social network that has come up as a Twitter alternative. I then decided to create this Linktree for myself which lists links to all my social media accounts [only some of which have "social icons" up top]. I would like to put all or most of them on there, even if I'm no longer using them or haven't figured out a use for them, and hide them. I figure I can unhide them if I find a use for it or want to memorialize it. I found the motherload in this blog post where I listed many of my social media and other online accounts, many of them which no longer exist.
Each social network has it's dynamics and its pros and cons, and certain types of content may be better suited for some... so it's a process of trying it out and see what sticks. Posting the same thing everywhere doesn't make sense anymore, and most of the platforms or features which would allow for that are no longer available or charge a fee. Also posting on different websites expands your reach to people you would otherwise not reach and it brings back an oldschool Web 1.0 feel, where you're not just stuck on Facebook endlessly scrolling or reposting other people's content for weeks on end.
I had a feeling where I reconnected with a side of myself I had lost throughout this journey of going back through my old accounts, primarily from my mechanesthesia LiveJournal.
So in a way, this process for me is a way of recovering my past self and reconciling it with my current self [digital and IRL].
To commemorate this recovery process, I wanted to share probably my first ever online proto-social media account here on GameFAQs where I registered on 3/17/2001, originally with username "apathy."