Dead Plants and Dead Blogs: Digital Gardening
During the COVID era, I became a plant daddy to a succulent, no less. Low maintenance, surprisingly photogenic, and perfect for someone pretending to have their life together during a global crisis. For all intents and purposes, the world had stopped… and I had time to water things.
Taking care of a blog is a lot like being a plant parent. It’s surprisingly easy when you have all the time in the world and nowhere to go. The lockdown saw a blogging bloom. Content creation became viral, even pets had blogs, Instagram an TikTok accounts. Judging by my own stats, that’s when I had peak traffic. People had time. People had thoughts. People doom scrolled.
I honestly don’t remember what happened to the succulent I was taking care of. It probably died. Quietly. Offscreen. And honestly, that’s what happened to many blogs too. Sometimes the internet is nothing more than a digital cemetery where blogs go to die, buried instead of being planted.
It all starts the same way: a seed of a thought.
You plant it in the soil of your blog, unsure if it will take root. You wonder: Will anyone read this? Will they care?
But still, you press “publish”, gently patting the digital soil, like a hopeful gardener.
…Then comes the waiting.
Some posts sprout overnight, blossoming into riotous swell of colour. Others… not so much. They sit there, colour draining like a neglected houseplant by a dusty window. You’re not sure whether they’re resting or rotting.
Still, you visit your garden. You water it with your time, your attention. You prune, weed and sweat.
Some of your posts are like succulents: easy, low-effort, and oddly resilient. Others are temperamental orchids, needing just the right circumstance and alignment of the stars to bloom.
And slowly or suddenly, that lone sapling of a blog becomes a garden or even an orchard or plantation.
With every post you plant, you leave behind a seed. A moment. A thought. Maybe someone stumbles upon your garden years later, finding shade, solace, relatability or a much-needed laugh.
Maybe you return, scrolling through your archives, and remember why you started growing your own flowers in the first place.
And just like that, you’re reminded: not everything that’s buried is gone. Some things just need the right season to bloom again…
#winterabc25
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