Tumblelogs

I've been trying to classify what sort of blog I currently operate. It's not the traditional chronological "blog" with long-form (or even medium-form ) posts. It's not a microblog with short snippets of text. It's not a photo blog, link blog, or a digital garden.

I think it's all those things rolled into one.

In the early 2000s, these were called tumblelogs. Eventually, this concept became the basis for Tumblr. Today, that's the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they hear that term, but it's no longer part of the lexicon.

I want to change that. My blog is a tumblelog, but not one powered by Tumblr (but it is a part of it). It's powered by 11ty and contains my writing (like the thing you're currently reading), microblog posts from Mastodon, reblogs from Tumblr, and an assortment of feeds from other places for my reading, playing, and collecting. It represents what I'm working on, seeing, saving, and sharing.

A tumblelog in the truest sense. Tumblr hasn't been the worst steward of the term, but we can start taking it back and making it a more common way to share. If you want to start your own, check out Known or consider spinning up your own with a static site generator like 11ty, Jekyll, or Hugo, and some good ol' RSS.