Hannah's Web log

This time last year I started blogging, for pretty much the first time.

I say "pretty much" because around 2015-2016 I did a few variations of the professional development program 23 Things, and set up a small WordPress blog to write up the activities. It was functional, earnest, and very much "early-career librarian doing the right things". When the program ended, the blog quietly went dormant.

Today I surfaced an old Bluesky post from this time last year:

Is it new year fever getting to me? I just performed NECROMANCY on an old blog I mostly used for professional development in 2016 and plan to start BLOGGING AGAIN

— Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Metadata, Lattes & Impostor Syndrome) (@hannahshelley.site) January 4, 2025 at 9:40 AM

This was a decision that aged well - though not in the way I expected.

The resurrected Wordpress blog didn't last long. In the decade since I'd last used it, the platform had changed substantially. In trying to make things easier, it had become less intuitive - at least to me. And the whole experience had always carried a strong freemium vibe: banner ads on my site, most of the good templates and customisation features locked behind a paywall, a constant sense that I was using a provisional version of my own space.

There were other obvious options. Substack. Medium. But those platforms feel geared towards serious writers building audiences, not tinkerers or personal bloggers. I also don't like how you're meant to say "my Substack" rather than "my blog", because that's a proprietary platform asserting dominance over you and your creative output (as Anil Dash has persuasively written). And Substack also suffers from the whole "we willingly platform Nazis" problem, which is a dealbreaker for me.

So instead, I started blogging here on a self-designed website hosted on Neocities dot org, a platform best known for encouraging people to make slightly unhinged websites on purpose, and which lacks drafts, comments, analytics, or even the concept of a "post".

*Record scratch.* *Freeze frame.* Yep. That's me. I suppose you're wondering how I got into this situation.

For that, we need to talk about Twitter.

In 2015 my work paid for me to attend the VALA - Libraries / Technology and the Future conference in Melbourne. It was my first professional conference, and I absolutely loved it. For one thing I like Melbourne. It all felt like a holiday - flying interstate, staying in a hotel, getting free lunches - and the sessions themselves were genuinely fascinating and useful to me as a new professional. What really stood out, though, was Twitter. Each session had its own hashtag, there were tons of people posting, and the live online conversation added an extra layer of meaning and connection to the in-person experience. I really saw the value.

After that conference I got into Library Twitter. It was lively and intellectually stimulating. But because I was young, insecure, and not yet fully employed, I thought I should be "professional". I avoided politics, strong opinions, and even making jokes. I mostly posted links to library-related articles without commentary (the absolute most boring way to post, don't try it at home). I logged on to enjoy other people's jokes, opinions, and slices of life - but I didn't add my own voice.

What was I afraid of? That my employer would discover I had a personality and fire me? It's not as though I was about to post anything wrong or inappropriate - not out of restraint, but because I wouldn't want to anyway! I was way too cautious, and I paid the price in not building much of a network there.

Over time, Twitter lost its shine. There was the gradual enshittification. There was the Musk of it all. There was also an unseen algorithm that punished my lack of engagement with even less engagement. I became a lurker, then an occasional visitor, then someone who occasionally opened the app almost by mistake, only to find fewer and fewer accounts I followed still posting - and more and more trash, hatred, misinformation, and general nastiness.

But - for whatever reason, I was still a believer in the internet.

When I signed up to Bluesky in early 2024, it was extremely quiet and a bit twee. I didn't really get into it until November, when it surged in popularity, attracting a critical mass of people, all of whom were excited to be there.

I liked the communities of librarians and academics who'd moved over. I liked that it felt like "old Twitter" - which makes sense, given its origins. I liked the chronological feed that didn't algorithmically punish me unless I chased engagement. I liked the high level of customisation, the general positivity, and the fact that people were nice. It felt like a second chance at library Twitter after failing to really participate the first time. So this time, I leaned in.

The idea to start blogging again was also tied to this. It felt like an opportunity to engage with librarianship - and with the web - in a more expansive, personal way. I also learned about Neocities through Bluesky and immediately loved the concept.

I learned HTML as a kid because I wanted to customise my Neopets shop. I made hobby websites on Geocities. Making scrappy HTML sites was a recurring feature of my schooling and also my personal time. So I signed up for Neocities thinking it would be fun (and yes I know "Neocities" is not a combination of Neopets and Geocities, by the way - but it is in my heart).

Initially I envisaged it would just be a landing page or resume with links to my socials. But it became clear to me that I should actually use this as my blogging platform.

A year on, I'm glad I chose tools that match how I actually like to think in public. This is a hobby, not a side hustle. I want to experiment, to write about whatever I feel like, and to let things be uneven, and a bit self-indulgent, because ultimately I'm doing it for myself.

I'm surprised that I've gotten as much traction as I have. Neocities doesn't offer detailed analytics, which turns out to be a gift, so I don't know exactly where the traffic is coming from or why. But according to my site stats, I'm consistently getting hundreds of unique visits a day. The Neocities counter crept up to numbers I never imagined when I started - nearly 120,000 views now. I think a lot of it is due to one post that did the Bluesky equivalent of going viral. Even though I'm not chasing reach, that 100k milestone (achieved in less than a year!) was very validating for someone who's boring tweets used to get 6 impressions and 0 engagements.

So no - it probably wasn't New Year fever compelling me to start this blog one year ago. It was me believing that the social web can still be fun, personal, creative, stimulating, and under your own control.

And that's aged very well indeed.

Discuss on Bluesky

I've been blogging for one year! 🎂 Reflecting on my social media journey, why I rejected the big platforms for a hand-coded site, and how it paid off

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— Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Metadata, Lattes & Impostor Syndrome) (@hannahshelley.site) January 3, 2026 at 11:43 AM