Can Blogs Rebuild America?

Wall Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota

Back in the early 2000s, we started blogs, and started talking to each other. We became friends.

We had no idea that our individual, independent publications and friendships would link up to create a movement that transformed media, marketing, and the national conversation (in my case, about parenting, but on other topics, too).

Do you remember what the media landscape was like before blogs? Traditional publishing and media was off-limits to most so few people had access to a public forum. We were part of changing that, for better or for worse.

It wasn’t “influence” or “personal branding” back then, it began as community.

Our voices and the gathering spaces they created changed our world. I think we’re in a moment when we can do that again.

I’m not suggesting we all launch political blogs. I’m suggesting we reignite our independent community spaces. Turn up the volume on our individual voices and real-life stories whatever they are now, share our values…create an alternative to the social media messages and memes that keep floating to the top.

Are you familiar with Humans of New York? It’s a tapestry of individuals’ stories that somehow highlights the threads that connect us. Our blogs could collectively be that, distributed across geographical, political, racial, religious, ethnic and gender lines. No silos, no algorithms. Just real people sharing real stories so other people can read and comment and feel a part of those stories and be reminded about what connects us.

Our blogs could once again incubate community without a specific agenda beyond sharing our real lives and connecting people.

We could use the years-long network of trust we’ve built with each other to amplify these conversations. I’m talking old-school blogrolls and comments again, not for building influence or traffic, but for re-energizing community. Rebuilding the bonds among us as friends and colleagues and among us and our readers.We all miss what the blogosphere used to be, but there’s nothing stopping us from doing it again.

The currency wouldn’t be dollars or page views or virality. It would be connection. This isn’t nostalgia. I’m suggesting the NOW version of blogging and *real* online community on a human scale. Think of it as “slow social media.”

It’s not unreasonable to imagine that if we did this, with the influence we have, it could spark a cultural shift that would make a difference in the state of our country.

Idealistic? Yes. Naive? I don’t think so.

Actually, I don’t care. America is fractured. There’s no time to theorize.

Let’s bring an experimental mindset to this. Ask: what if? 

No one would have believed what our blogs would grow into had they told us back then. Look at us now.