Apple Annie’s Weblog

Types of blog posts.

Late in January into early February 2024, I will have been regularly blogging again for a year. The last time I attempted this activity was during college (the second time around) in my late 20s/early 30s, about 12-15 years ago. The time has been educational, meaningful at times, and I think I have improved as a person. I've spent a lot of time reading other people's blogs, subscribing to RSS feeds, reviving my Reeder subscriptions, and thinking about what people write about and what I want to write about.

There is such an explosion of blogs in my online realm that some of them have spawned into newsletters, a dedication I once attempted, though on a totally different scale, regularity, and topic. In just my most frequented Mastodon timeline I have a hard time keeping up with new posts daily and this doesn't even touch on my RSS reader or micro.blog timeline, nor any of my other three Mastodon accounts (admittedly less blogs). It's hard to know if I've just surrounded myself with like-minded blog lovers at this point in my life, or if the indieweb movement really is taking off from all angles.

Either way, I've noticed some topic types, trends, post types, whatever you want to call it, that seem to follow a sort of pattern. Not that any one person or blog follows one of these or any of these or all of these. Just that these are what I have noticed and perhaps also written a blog post matching a type. So here goes, noting that this is a first pass. It should and probably will change.

The personal anecdote.

These can be short. Some of them even just end up on social media, but occasionally get expanded upon in blog posts. I see a lot of these on micro.blog, but a fair amount of them elsewhere. I have written this type of post. You could call them a "take" but they tend to be more observational and perhaps a bit judgy, though neither good nor bad, happy or sad. They just are. Some people might call them shower thoughts. Personal in nature.

The popular bandwagon/trend.

I might be annoyed a bit by these. Not because they are bad, but because they are...a waste of words? These feel like posts for the sake of posting—look at me! Sorry, now I'm being judgy. Like a hive mind driving what to write about instead of deep thought. We could use more deep thought in this world. Critical thought. These posts are the Instagram posts of the blogging world. Not all popular posts are bandwagon/trend posts, though. The recent spate of "what's wrong with web design" blog posts and conference talks are not these. Instead I would lump those in with "The experiential reflection" type post (more on that type later).

Update: I never meant for this type of post to mean do not write about something! I wasn't even meaning this to cover anything technical, cutting edge, or even of personal interest. Specifically, at the time I wrote this post, there had been a recent round of blog posts about "Default Apps" and that was top of mind when I came up with this type. Please consider the following excerpt from the transcript of the most recent episode of "Igalia Chats". They bring up a really good reason to continue to write about things that may have already been extensively written about, in the context of web features and adoption:

Brian Kardell: I mean, this is kind of a statement on writing and evangelism and adoption of features in general, right? I think there's always that, 'Should I write about X? Because X is really interesting to me.' But I don't know, maybe 100 other people have already written about that. The answer is yes, because if you are just discovering it, you're just getting into it, the previous attempts really haven't reached you, so maybe you take your thing and you reach a whole bunch more people.

Eric Meyer: Yeah. I mean, always write about it because it might only be one other person that you achieve that breakthrough for, but that's one more person. Maybe they then, in the course of talking about what they learned, they reach a whole bunch more people. Or maybe when you blog about it and somebody notices it and it sort of goes viral, that leads to the break in for a lot of people. We don't all understand things in the same way. We don't process things in the same way. So sometimes what maybe you're waiting for is for someone to explain it in a way that you get, whereas maybe the other people explained it in a way that other people got but you didn't. But yeah, absolutely.

—Igalia Chats: Web Components are Having a Moment

The takedown.

Some people might call these rants, and that's probably fair. The topic may be prompted by another blog post, or a social media post, a video, an interview, something that sparks some type of controversy in a community or group of passionate people. Sometimes these can be "sub-tweets" but in extended form. They're a rebuttal, a refusal, a takedown with receipts! I enjoy these, for the most part. I like reading passionate writing about something that someone cares about. If you've taken the time to write a well versed takedown, you will probably get my eyeballs if the subject even remotely interests me.

The I love this/so should you.

Seemingly the opposite of "The takedown," the "I love this/so should you" post may be self-explanatory. But I sometimes think this type of post is also an attempt to further convince the author. If you just take the time to "put it in print" well then it must be so! This is a little bit the pre-cursor to the bandwagon/trend post as well. As soon as one of these goes "viral" or becomes a popular topic to post about, then it can quickly move to "The popular bandwagon/trend." As you can see, post topics are fluid and can fit more than one category, and can even move from one to another.

The educational how-to.

The posts I probably like the most, or at least have the most open tabs for, are the educational ones. These often include how-tos. At least they include examples or embedded Codepens. These can become stale over time but often get updated or revisited as information changes and techniques evolve. The educational how-to are the driver of modern web development. They're so popular that big-name platforms have created their own spaces for these, driving traffic and harvesting data. Educational how-tos were some of the best bits of the earlier web too. Places like CSS Tricks and Smashing Magazine, one which will live in infamy and the other that still pushes forward.

The experiential reflection.

I think we can differentiate "The personal anecdote" with "The experiential reflection" because there is often a moral to the post, or a tactile takeaway. Something that also makes us reflect, perhaps on our own experiences, similar or not. These posts reveal our values and show growth. They might induce an emotional reaction. They might illicit us to take action on something. They too are often personal, but I think moreover they can cross boundaries. These are the posts of deep thought. They take time to write because they sometimes hurt, but writing them often leads to healing. Of course, that leads us to the next one.

The sob story.

Deeply personal stories. Painful stories. Stories of loss and tragedy. Often it is just about getting the pain out and there's nothing to learn. These can be process posts, healing posts. Posts to visit later and then reflect upon in an experiential reflection (heyo!) post. I think these are also hard to write but perhaps less so than the experiential reflection post because we may not actually want anyone else to read them. We also may not want anyone to comment on them.

The wrap-up.

How could I forget this one?! This is one that was new to me and took me a bit to get the swing of. It takes the form of "Things this week" or "Three good things" or "Week notes, mm/dd/yyyy." You get the gist. As someone who feels their hand is being forced like it's a task mandated to me, I resisted this type of post for a long time. A fellow omgloler called hers "Weak Notes" to depict her less-than-weekly regularity. I liked that but wanted to come up with my own, so I use "Some Day Notes" to make apparent I'll do it when it strikes me—some day! These are wrap-ups, compilations, they can be reflections, but less lengthy, less commentary, more "here's what happened, here's what I'm marking as important or noteworthy" for a specified time period.

The research/essay.

Another one I missed even though it is recently obvious how much work can go into blog posts published on a personal blog, that should very well be published and circulated (with pay) elsewhere. This is sometimes a labor of love, though I'd argue blogs are themselves a labor of love. Perhaps a topic of personal interest for any number of reasons. The amount of research that can go into a blog post or series of posts, such as @kissane's Meta in Myanmar series, can be as much as writing a thesis. Some people have entirely different sections on their blog for what they deem essays, such as @fonts' newest incantation of his blog. Again, we can have crossover as many "educational how-tos" require a lot of time and research to complete.

The link list.

I suppose this is part "wrap-up" and part "I love this/so should you," but I think it stands alone. As the name suggests, this is a post that is largely a list of links. The author has curated this list, either by topic or relevance, it usually fits a theme. They are accompanied by context or a summary to explain to the reader why they too should follow the link. These can make it into newsletters or a series, such as @kizu's Weekly Bookmarks and @stephaniewalter's Curated weekly UX, Design & Tech resources (Pixels of the Week).

The crowd-source/people's choice.

Here's another one that has recent days. These could also fall under some of the other types, such as "research/essay". They take the form of starting as a poll or open question to be shared online with a defined set of criteria for answers. I've been seeing more of these on Mastodon lately, but I remember some of this on Twitter in The Old Days. A few recent posts from @oluOnline have me very curious about what post comes next from her in a creative series, the most recent Formulaic. Though this is part of his newsletter, @matthiasott posits a similar type of prompt for several posts including a recent popular one that has even spawned "responses" by other people on their blogs.

The pretending to know more than I do/fraud.

Not everyone or everything fits into a box, Anne! As was just pointed out to me (11/15/2023) not even this post can be defined by my list of blog post types. There's something to be said for just plain bullshitting. Thanks for the healthy dose of humble pie, Blake 🥧

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