NoBloMo #3 - The Evolution of Gameritis

I still can't believe I started this blog more than seven years ago. That means NOTHING to anyone else but me, but it shows how persistent I was to write something here. But finding a voice in my own blog was harder than I thought.

The First Years

My thought process was to make one post a day (much like this NoBloMo), and keep taking my streams of thought and pouring them out to posts. Sometimes I had lots to write about. Other times, not so much. But there always seemed to be something I could write about, whether it was about the latest Smash Bros news tidbit, to random rants, to just posting something I found amusing. Looking back, it was a mesh of all the above, with a sprinkling of Zero Punctuation videos on a weekly basis (which is still hilarious, and I still suggest checking out his videos!).

I think the most favorite thing I enjoyed doing was all the Photoshop images. It's always easy to just pull an image from the internet and re-purpose it, but I liked adding my own humor and flair. It makes it unique and very me, and I can feel confident posting it up because it's still of my own creation.

(From Sept. 3rd, 2009)

(From Oct. 28th 2008)

(From June 2nd 2008)

But the most important thing I learned from day one was that I'm doing this blog for me. No one else. There was no grand expectation of a vast audience, of a certain following or viewership. I wrote my blog articles with none of those aspirations, because it really was just for me. A personal video game diary, if you will...except it was up for the public to view, too. And that took a lot of obligation and weight away from writing posts. I still drove myself into deadlines, pushing myself to post something - anything - on the blog. If no one else were to read it, it's still MY diary. Looking back at my previous articles, I'm glad I did.

The Later Years

I think the picture explains itself. As I got older, games waned from my life. Maybe maturity started to rise from the ashes of my aging childhood, or maybe life started to pry myself away from the blog moment by moment, day by day.

Soon, meaningful posts dwindled, and more posts with excuses popped up. Then after a while, even those started falling off the radar. Just observing this post list from time to time reminds me visually how I've become less and less a gamer.

When I think about it, however, there's actually a lot of excess fat from the earlier years, in the form of non-original posts like the Zero Punctuation videos. I guess a small part of me "sold out" in a way, making posts for the sake of posting, and not adding my own value to my content. I would think, "hey, I'll just post a video, to show that I still post on my blog."

But that wasn't me. More than anything, Gameritis suddenly became a site of things I liked and shared, but nothing from me. Probably the only thing (I think) that really defined my site was my "finished" posts.

What are "finished" posts? I'll talk more on that tomorrow!