Preface
I want to start with some other thoughts. The post 博客新解 - 印记 once nudged me to write something similar, but for various reasons it never took shape. I’m making up for that here.
Let me first talk about my blogging journey. I briefly mentioned the origin of my domain in 域名惊魂. Calculating backwards, the domain was registered in February 2019, when I was still a “free and idle” student. But in fact, I started playing with static blogs earlier. As written in this site’s footer, it was 2016, my sophomore year in college. I remember even sharing some site-building experience in a group meeting (thinking back now, I only half-understood it myself; my classmates must have been completely lost). At that time, the network conditions for GitHub Pages seemed okay. Unfortunately, the first site didn’t retain any posts; the earliest blog post still visible in the repo now dates to 2018.
If we don’t confine ourselves to the narrow sense of an “independent blog,” my blogging history can go back even further. I collected some things in 老博客归档. Looking back, I’m somewhat envious of my past self. Back then I wasn’t yet a full-fledged i-type introvert; I dared to “make a fool of myself” in front of friends, had no “idol burden,” and just said whatever I wanted. In 2010, 我在说梦话, I don’t even remember that I used to be an admin of a fan group. It’s also hard to imagine how, in 2011, at age 16, I was able to write: Pain has rubbed away my edges, and I obediently play a self that isn’t mine. 事实上 this post can be traced back to 2012. They were first published on QQ Zone (evil grin). Looking at QQ Zone records, these “articles” (let’s call them articles for convenience; now they feel more like Weibo or Moments posts) might have had only 4–5 readers, but back then I felt like I was a KOL among my classmates. Looking back, my younger self seemed like a teenage hero (in my own eyes).
Back to the main thread: after 2019, the slogan for this site was already strongly flavored with i-ness:
Drawing and writing in a place where no one can see.
During this time I wrote some technical notes and occasionally expressed my feelings. A turning point later was joining a certain Chinese blogging group; for this I have to thank @Bruce. I got to know some friends, which greatly influenced my thinking about blogging and my views on blogs themselves. For example, @1900 helped me find bugs on my site; as mentioned in /docs/, I set up a digital garden under the influence of @陈仓颉; I’m envious of @DemoChen’s book-notes page (which I’m still procrastinating on building). Although my site still doesn’t have a comment system, it no longer feels like an isolated island.
The group “independent blog owners” is interesting. We all invest different amounts of time: some people dress up their sites every day, some appear in others’ comment sections with high frequency. Each has their own traits, yet we’re all quite similar. It’s actually hard to sum up common features, but here I’d like to make a macro classification: horizontal bloggers and vertical bloggers, similar to horizontal and vertical work in research or jobs.
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Horizontal bloggers are like most of us, myself included. We have our own views on the world and on different fields: a post of observations, a post of random thoughts, a technical note—contented within our own small patch of land.
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Vertical bloggers often have deep expertise in a single niche area, maybe philosophy, photography, cycling, or technology. They deserve the status of big V; they just either don’t want it or haven’t achieved it yet. Reading their posts feels like getting a bargain every time.
Although every time I finish reading a “vertical blogger” I’ll have a brief moment of self-doubt—questioning the value of what I write, feeling more psychological pressure before picking up the pen—ultimately this leads me to push myself to read more books, which is pretty positive.
The most comforting thing is that in the world of independent blogs, because it’s decentralized in the strict sense, even though different sites have very different traffic and visibility, this doesn’t create “classes” among bloggers. I don’t feel inferior when I stand before a blogger whose site gets thousands of visits a day, just because mine only has a handful. Nor will other sites’ influence affect the number of my readers. The relationship between bloggers is simply that of people with shared interests. This is a rare kind of fairness that’s impossible to achieve on any other platform.
Recently, Follow has, in my eyes, connected independent content creators in an unprecedented way, giving independent blogs new possibilities for the future. On Follow, both the subscriber count and the view history give me a huge emotional boost, which in turn nudges me to “make a fool of myself” more often.
Independent Blog Self-Reflection Questionnaire
I’ve said most of what I wanted to say above. Back to the main topic.
1. How frequently do you update your blog?
On a “go with the flow” basis; it mainly depends on how intense work is, oscillating between seasonal updates and daily updates.
2. When was your last blog update?
I wrote three posts this week, but only six this whole year.
3. Are your blog posts original?
Copying other people’s posts would completely betray my original intention in creating this blog.
4. Do you think your posts are helpful to others?
They’re mainly for my own self-indulgence. Even for the technical parts, I’m usually just expressing some of my thoughts; out of laziness, the steps are often not very detailed, so I suppose their usefulness to others is limited.
5. When was the last time you changed your blog theme/program?
There’s a record in 博客折腾日记. The last time was migrating from Hugo to Astro. I’ve been using the theme I wrote myself ever since, with occasional patches and fixes.
6. When was the last time you tinkered with your blog theme’s code?
Just now, actually. But it’s mostly done. This post is being edited and published from Obsidian, and since I’m not opening the IDE, I’m not thinking about updating styles.
7. Do you do secondary development on your blog theme?
I’m grateful for the booming front-end industry, which allows a half-baked person like me to make my own theme.
8. How often do you open your own blog to bask in it?
Same as before: depending on how busy work is, it’s either 0 or countless times.
9. How do you feel about your blog’s domain name recently?
Overall satisfied, but since I also have chenyuhang.com / chenyuhang.cn in my hands, it’s hard to say when I might abandon this domain.
10. Do you check your site’s traffic stats every day?
Occasionally I peek at Cloudflare. With this update I also removed the stats script, because it doesn’t seem to serve much purpose for me.
11. Have you made money from ads on your blog?
Zero income, but apart from the domain I haven’t invested much anyway.
12. What’s your main reason for browsing other people’s blogs/sites?
For me, it’s a way to get information and to relax. I don’t use Weibo or TikTok, and when Bilibili has nothing interesting to show me, besides the news, my friends’ sites are a great place to go.
13. When you see someone share a post, what’s your first reaction when you open it?
For technical posts, it depends on whether I need it. For life-sharing posts, I read them all.
14. What do you think is most important in a blog?
Content, content, content!
Of course, the interface shouldn’t be too uncomfortable either.
15. What new gains have you had recently from blogging?
I can’t think of any brand-new gains. Recently I updated my content management approach: 一种内容管理的新想法. Updating content has become more motivating.