Hello blog. It’s been a while since I was last here; four years to be precise. I’ll be honest with you, after Brexit and Trump happened I needed some space. My liberal leanings were challenged, and with so much rage and vitriol around, I didn’t see the point of being one more voice shouting into the toxic void known as the internet. Four years later, my toxic shock is over.
Nobody reads blogs anymore. Facebook dealt a body blow to online journaling and the rest of social media swept it away in a tsunami of bite-sized bullshit anyone could read and share in seconds.
Our collective attention span was reduced to the length of a tweet. People stopped reading the news and instead read only the headlines. We shared for ‘likes’ and loved the affirmation those hearts and thumbs-up gave us.
When Edward Snowden told us we were being spied on, and Cambridge Analytica was revealed to be manipulating all of us, the world didn’t rise up and demand accountability. Instead, we raised little more than a collective eyebrow, then went back to thumbing through memes and Instagram posts from ‘influencers’ who exist in color-saturated worlds we browse with a hint of envy and maybe a side order of disdain.
So when Donald Trump became the President-elect in 2016, it didn’t come as a surprise to me. Just months earlier, amid a storm of misinformation, lies, and manipulation, the United Kingdom had ripped itself away from its nearest neighbors in an isolationist divorce they called ‘Brexit.’
The term ‘Brexit’ shortened the complexity of the choice voters had and gave it a clickable brand. You were either for or against ‘Brexit’ and it didn’t need to be any more complicated than that. People defined in their own minds what that word meant, irrespective of what the truth was.
Across the Atlantic, Americans had ‘MAGA’ and their red hat revolution that liberals thought could never happen. A ‘pussy-grabbing’ reality TV President was an absurd notion, impossible they thought.
Even Trump didn’t believe he would win, shouting from his campaign pulpit about how the election was rigged and victory would surely be stolen from him by an establishment of unrelatable elites, journalists, and experts.
The sweet joy of ‘owning the libs’ and the idea of building a wall to keep everyone you hate from crossing your path was a delicious idea that ignited citizens who had long felt like nobody in power was listening to them.
Complicated conversations were reduced to a word or a slogan that you could declare or decry then quickly thumb to the next meme or morsel of fast news served in the palm of your hand.
It seemed to me that nobody was listening anymore. Everyone had an opinion, and many were shouting it while others slung bar brawl punches that landed like a messy end to a good night out.
We awoke the next day with digital hangovers, our heads pounding while outside normality was ablaze. Networks created to connect us had done the opposite. Truth and the opportunity to pause for thought had been drowned in an epic flood of fear and fury.
So on that cold November morning in 2016, what was I to write that hadn’t already been written? What point was there to write anything when everything had been reduced to slogans and portamentos?
I felt lost and deflated. How had it got to the point where we knew more about what the people around us hated than what they loved?
As 2016 came to an end I wrote the final post on my 366 Pictures blog. It was a glorious summer day in Melbourne, Australia, far from the Brexiteers and the red hat revolutionaries. I didn’t think it would be four years until I would publish another word.
I thought of writing, even if it were just something to say I’m still here, still loving life and seeing the world. But nobody reads blogs anymore. If you’ve made it this far then we’re probably friends, and if we’re not we probably should be.
Blogging as a form of communication is dead, and that’s why I haven’t written anything for four years. If you and I are friends then we’ve been in touch, haven’t we? And if not, then let’s fix that.
Let’s fix that because in this world of instant communication, communication itself is broken.
So maybe rather than watching another documentary telling us that, or posting something on social media lambasting this truth, we can take back a little control by reaching out to one another to start talking and maybe, more importantly, start listening.
As for my long-forgotten blog, dated and derelict as it is, perhaps I’ll return to writing here. Not because anyone is reading, but because writing itself takes time.
To sit and craft one sentence after another requires thought, meditation in a way. We consume so much, maybe taking the time to create something as simple as a sentence can slow our rush to judgment?
I’ll write like the child who waves at passing airplanes knowing that the passengers won’t see them. They don’t need to see. I’m not waving for them, I’m waving for me.
—
Illustrations by Edel Rodriguez and Lennart Gäbel
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 5:36 pm
Morning!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 7:42 pm
Trump Brexit Covid.
I’m looking forward to Trump starting a new TV channel which will split the right-wing in America as Fox News will move to a less extreme political position. Screaming liberals are no more pleasant then gun toting so-called Christians. It’s possible that Joe Biden well run a moderate centre-left government and the Anarchist left will calm down.
One of the options for a Brexit free trade deal is employment, food and environmental standards are maintained at the current level and so UK tradeS freely with Europe FOR NOW. If at some point Britain chooses to lower its standards or not keep up with EU standards in an attempt to become more competitive then the free trade agreement will be cancelled by the EU. That has the short-term advantage of us not crashing out in a few days time. But it does not solve the fishing question.
Covid is just gonna be bad for another 3 to 6 months in the UK and most of the world. Huncker Down for a bit longer.
Where are you now?
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 7:45 pm
Hello. People do still read blogs.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 9:21 pm
Great writing as ever my friend.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 9:44 pm
He is risen!!!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 10:05 pm
Gordon’s alive!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 10:44 pm
Just dropping by to say Hi! It was a great surprise to see your blog in my mailbox today.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 12, 2020 at 10:48 pm
I often wondered what happen to you. Loved the 366 projects. I Look forward to any future offerings. You must have taken a lot of photos over the last four years, how about posting some of these.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 12:19 am
Simon!! What a lovely surprise to have this piece sitting in my email this morning. I’ve always loved your writing and let me say that this peice shows you have lost none of your talent for writing. I read it all all to the end too so we must be friends ;-)
I actually love what you wrote here, I hope you don’t mind if I share it on evil facebook but I feel like others should read this. In fact let me say as a word of encouragement for your writing, I have often felt that others should read you.
Oh and I love the clever re-use of that last line. Being an old reader from the Meanwhile days I spotted that right away.
It’s lovely to read you again and know you’re still out there seeing the world and loving life!
PS. I LOVE the new design of Meanwhile! I may scroll through a re-read some of those old post, like watching an episode of an old TV show I loved. Wonderful! x
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 1:47 am
Bonjour Simon. Bon retour!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 2:32 am
Oh wow. Simon is back! I wondered whatever happened to you. I loved 366 pictures. I was hoping you’d pop up again this leap year and take us all on the magical journey with you once more. Now though I bet you’re pleased you didn’t do that given all the restrictions we have. I don’t know too much about the rest of the world, but its been wild here in Texas what with the virus, the election, race reckonings, a terrible heat wave, Hurricane Laura, and a recession! You’re right though, I think social media hasn’t helped us in the long run. Just look at the President and his tweeter.
I’m happy to hear you are alive and well. And I love your photography too so I agree with Dave’s comment. Please do share some pictures from your amazing adventures soon. Hugs.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 3:23 am
Hi Simon- while we don’t know each other, as you wrote, I guess we should be friends because I read your entire post and greatly appreciated it. You have succinctly captured the changes and hardships the past four years have brought. I, too, have been gravely disappointed by the pivoting towards hate and difference and away from love and sharing our human commonalities. Where I respectfully disagree with you is I believe as evidenced by me and the others who have commented here there are still people who read blogs. Perhaps it is precisely because the world appears to have focused in on memes, tweets and likes that some of us are yearning for more real, meaningful content. Thank you again for coming back to your blog and sharing your thoughts with the world.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 4:56 am
Nice to see you back here Simon. I read to the end too, and completely relate with what you wrote. It seems a few people did, so maybe blogging isn’t as dead as you think it is. I don’t write as beautifully as you, but you’ve inspired me to maybe journal again, as a meditation. I like that you call it that.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 6:41 am
I think that’s potentially the best email notification I’ve had all year!?! instantly took me back to your 366 project where I would join you on your adventures during my lunch break… I read it straight away.
I have to admit I struggled at some points, maybe I’ve been rewired for instant gratification by the social media giants, maybe my struggle was due to the distractions I have running round my house… who knows? Either way I hope your therapy continues and look forward to catching up soon
I also enjoyed reading the comments, I also smiled at the meanwhile/ waving at planes reference as Addy mentioned – and I’ll finish by seconding Ariana’s comment: maybe we do still read blogs… we just need something worth reading!?!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 13, 2020 at 9:58 am
BANG! You are back and you’ve knocked the ball out of the field with this post!!
“How had it got to the point where we knew more about what the people around us hated than what they loved?”
“in this world of instant communication, communication itself is broken.”
I am officially restarting my bro-crush on you dude! Welcome back and really, this was so good I read it all the way through TWICE!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 14, 2020 at 5:47 am
You may not have written anything if 4 years, but it doesn’t show. Good to see you back.
Wrote the following comment on Dec 14, 2020 at 2:18 pm
Long time dude, but you nailed it!
Wrote the following comment on Dec 18, 2020 at 2:42 am
I stand corrected. I was wrong when I wrote “nobody reads blogs anymore” because clearly, from the comments here, people do!
Honestly I thought nobody would even see the post, so it was actually really cool to see comments come in. Those affirmations I mentioned do feel good :-)
Thanks for the comments guys. Honestly, I love to write, but it’s nice to know I am read by others too.