Remember when blogging was new? We overshared our lives and posted embarrassing pictures of ourselves and our small children. In 2007, I had a BlackBerry. Remember those? I would hijinks a patchy internet connection in the middle of the rainforest and type posts on that teeny keyboard, upload a blurry picture and that was blogging.
It never occurred to us to monetise anything, and SEO hadn't been invented yet. Memes were made up and we gifted random awards to one another. Some of us got massive book deals. Others of us kept parts of our lives hidden. Gradually, the blogosphere became corporate, our posts were copied and pasted and monetised by faceless influencers, and we deleted most of our children's photos.
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| My first ever photo upload |
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| Wow, this is an actual watercolour I did and turned into something pretty in like 2010 |
Looking through those old photo uploads is taking me waaaaay back, and it's tempting to turn this whole post into a rabbit hole down memory lane, which would be really appropriate since THAT'S WHAT WE USED TO DO BASICALLY ALL THE TIME, we'd just ramble and post and then there would be a whole conversation about cake in the comments section and then some of us would end up crying and solving all the problems of the world, occasionally in password-protected secret forums, and then sometimes we would meet up for cake IN REAL LIFE, and be friends for ever.
Like I said, it got corporate. Some of us monetised, got internet famous and did really well, others went quiet. This website still gets 9-10,000 visits a month, and in a few months it'll cross a million hits. Just because it's still here. This week, the post with the most hits is about co-sleeping, which points to an article I wrote for a parenting site that no longer exists. Oh, that freelance writing hustle! The second most popular is about the time my son called me a treacherous hag, and I complimented his vocabulary. Somewhere, someday, all this will matter. Or not! But I'm writing a nonfiction book now, and suddenly things like numbers of followers and monetisation and corporate success might matter to publishers because it's all about platform, people. If you enjoyed reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, I'm hoping my book, LEVEL, will be a similar great read but will demystify international law, telling the stories of the diverse individuals and nations who have contributed to global institutions and legal frameworks over thousands of years. International law has a fascinating history, with written laws starting way back in Mesopotamia.
Also, there's enough broken code on this site now that I'm gonna have to hire a proper html person to sort it all out and fix my security certificate, because I can no longer even.
All of this is to say, if you're following me here, or you're popping in to see what I'm up to, or have found this site through a web search (and managed to convince google that you're not looking for Nan Shepherd, the Scottish poet, who I'm not although I do admire her greatly and am not sorry to almost share a last name even if it's spelled completely differently so WTF google?)
What was I talking about?
Oh right. If you are still here, reading this, and haven't given up in despair yet, THANK YOU. You are not only lovely but also very patient (maybe the corporatization of the blogosphere was a good idea after all). If you would like to read more about the latest with LEVEL, you may pop over and subscribe (for free) on Substack. There, I'm making actual sense and proofreading stuff. I'm writing weekly articles about international law and why understanding it is important for you and everyone you know. I can also answer any international law questions you might have, like 'what is a tariff?' or 'why should I even care about international law?' or 'remember that time you posted a pic of your son's nostril?' Substack now has a 'scan for AI' feature, and it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. Substack is not so social media-y, and there are some good conversations. For now. Watch out for the influencers though!
SEO is going to love this one.
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