Day 634: Lurking

Blogging is sort of like talking to a brick wall.

Parents seem to say that phrase a lot in connection to their children and the instructions going in one ear and out the other, making it seem as if they're talking to absolutely no one. But I honestly feel like the term has never fit better than on the internet. On average, if I blog every single day as I should (and really do try to), I spend probably 15 minutes blogging. Now, that's not a lot, but think about it this way.

My friend Emily also goes to SNC. She lives literally only a couple of blocks away from me and we frequent the same buildings on campus, but yet I hardly see her for more than 10 minutes a week, much less a day. There are some friends you have conversations with for hours. Your roommates, for instance, are generally people you see and talk to for more than just a few seconds a day. But with a blog, you do all the talking, at least for the most part. Internet "fame" is a hard thing to come by, but the only way you really come by it is if you keep doing what you're doing because you like doing it. If you're not passionate or serious about your work, then nothing's going to succeed. I mean, yeah, I'm still about 25 days behind on my blog, and I get behind a day or two each week, but that's minor in comparison to the fact that I am currently writing blog post 636. That's a lot of days, a lot of conversations and a lot of time. If you take that average of 15 minutes per blog post, which is just on average NOW and not at the beginning or for some of the longer post, it means I've spent at least 159 hours blogging. I have spent 159 hours talking about Disney on the internet. That's crazy.

But it's still like I'm talking to a brick wall.

One of my roommates asked me about blogging and if I can see how many people view it and everything and lucky for me, the answer is yes. I CAN see how many people are viewing my blog each and every day. As I type this, Everyday Disney has had 28,406 pageviews in it's history, and on the average day I have around 50 views. So you sit and read those stats and you know that there are people out there reading what you're writing, but very rarely do you get someone who comes up and says "Hi! I read your blog!"

There's my mom and my friends, of course, who read my blog constantly, and then there's me, who writes the posts, but aside from that, it's a question of "Are there actually people out there?" I tried to explain this concept to my roommate, using the term "lurking" and she thought that was funny, simply because it sounds sort of creepy. But it's true, I know there are people lurking out there because I do that too. I get it, we don't all have time to comment on blog posts the time. I follow about 40 different Disney blogs and very rarely actually comment on them.

So I'm going to issue a challenge.

In the month of October I'm going to try and comment on one Disney blog post a day and become a more active Disney Community Member. It won't be here, but it will be other places, and let's see if we can all join in and be an even closer community. I'm not talking about necessarily promoting what you do, but just joining in on the discussion. Let's all stop lurking!

And to those of you who are out there and read my blog, thank you! Feel more than free to comment or send me a message or something and introduce yourself, even if it's not here and is instead on Twitter or Instagram or something. I'd love to meet my readers!

Thanks again to everyone who's out there lurking! Much love to you all!

Have a magical day!

Day 477: Disney Blogs

Not very often do I find myself having to make up a hundred days in blog posts, and generally I can find topics for the vast majority of the days I must make up. But I must admit, at the moment I'm facing an incredible number of days I still must make up, and while I have a bunch of ideas still in reserve, it's sort of scaring me how much I have left to make up. Like I'll look at a selection of days that's about 15-20 posts done from the summer and rejoice before scrolling up and finding another 50 that are left to do.

It's a work in progress.

But along this journey, I realized something. In my search for new ideas for blog posts, I did something new today that I've never really done before: I typed in a google search of "Disney Blog Ideas." It didn't come up with much, but it did inspire this blog post!

What happened to come up were some articles on "Must Read Disney Blogs" and so on and so forth, and as I went through the lists, since I love following new Disney blogs all the time, just to keep up on my Disney news, or at least when I have internet, I found something interesting.

I write a daily blog about Disney, and as I mention often, it's easy to get behind. That's a LOT of writing, and in the process of this blog I've probably written more than one book worth, but it'll make for just that, an interesting book someday. But what you so often see with blogs is they do give up. So as you click on the links to the different Disney fan blogs, you'll see ones that haven't been updated since 2011 or 2012 or even a number of months ago, and that just sort of makes me sad.

At the same time though, it inspires me. Back at the beginning of the year, or the end of last year really, when I was deciding whether or not to continue this blog, I mentioned that I couldn't really think of my life without it, and that still rings true. Despite the fact that I have an obnoxious amount of days left from this summer to make up thanks to my lovely internet, I CAN talk for days about Disney, long and short posts (ok, mostly long) alike. And why is it so important to me that I catch this thing up? Because I set out to do something there. I want to talk about Disney every day of my life, for the rest of my life, and while I highly doubt I'll reach Day 5000 or 10000, it's still a point. I don't want to be that blog that just randomly stopped for no good reason, and that's almost how I've been operating lately. It's why every time I actually have internet I make an effort to write a post, because it shows people that I am still here, and I really am trying. There's so much going on and everything, and as I continuously say, my internet is bloody annoying, but I'm not giving up now.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I wish more people would write their blogs, and continue them. I know how hard it is. I tried about four or five times to start a blog before I landed on this one and it stuck, but don't give up. We're a giant community, and eventually we're all going to be found and we can help one another, right?

Speaking of which, I should probably update all my social media and share these blog posts!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on August 8).