Writers of a certain age remember the golden age of blogging, right around the early 2000s, when websites like Blogspot and Xanga were the center of the cultural world. 

Suddenly anyone could sit down at a personal computer and create not just a loyal following, but a career. Eventually the biggest creators on blog sites migrated to their own independent websites where they started to collect paychecks from big companies selling ads. Authors like Samantha Irby, Allie Brosh, Jenny Lawson, Daniel M. Lavery, and others are well-respected writers who started with blogs and went on to publish well-reviewed books.

So what happened to all that great writing? Is it gone for good or has it just taken on a new form?

The Market Is a Fickle Thing

Technology is always evolving. Anything that’s the cool, hip platform today will be forgotten tomorrow—that’s just the way of things. As much as writers might miss the heyday of Blogspot, technology simply isn’t cyclical. 

But worse than the predictable march of time is the completely unpredictable winds of advertising revenue. If you listen to podcasts or follow any influencers who are up-front about the reality of their business, you know that companies might pay an arm and a leg for an ad one year, then forget you exist the next year. 

Blogging is a small business like any other, and the unfortunate reality is that small businesses are more at risk of failure because of even slight changes in the market. So if you want to make your blog last, you have to diversify your income stream. 

This is why newer platforms like Substack and Patreon are so successful right now; creators can create tiers of membership where they are paid directly by their audience, not by the middleman of advertising. 

Newsletters 

Speaking of Substack and Patreon, there are thousands of writers using those platforms. So why do we still speak so wistfully about the early 2000s if blogs have just moved somewhere else? 

The landscape of newsletters today doesn’t function quite the same way as old blogs did. For one thing, old-school blogs weren’t behind paywalls; that was part of why they became so popular. 

But many of the most successful newsletter writers today don’t come from a background of writing about their lives for fun. Many of them are journalists who became well-known enough to set out on their own and be paid directly by their readers. And others often contain more cultural curations, collections of reviews, recommendations, and opinion pieces.

All this to say, newsletters aren’t often personal writing the way old blogs used to be. So even though they’re immensely popular, they’re not exactly scratching the same itch. 

Scripted Video

It’s easy to complain about the massive popularity of video platforms like TikTok. Doesn’t anyone want to sit down and read anymore? Why is it that some people get to make all that money just by turning their phone on?

You might be surprised if you haven’t spent much time watching TikToks that many video creators are actually scripting their content, especially the comedy creators. Those sketches that go viral are scripted, rehearsed, and shot in takes just like a mini TV show. 

When it comes to lifestyle influencers, vloggers and people taking up the space that used to be occupied by the derogatory descriptor “Mommy Bloggers” are thinking about their content in the same way a writer is, even if they aren’t writing out lines. Does the video have a compelling beginning, middle, and end? Is there a conflict? The person in that shiny, perfected account isn’t a real person—they’re a character designed by someone with the same creative skills that, fifteen years ago, would have been picking out a very specific color scheme for their blog. 

There is such a huge amount of video content available—if you’re only seeing something that makes you cringe, that doesn’t mean there aren’t smart, creative people using the medium. It just means you have to find the creators who make what you find interesting.

Creativity Doesn’t Go Away

As a writer in 2025, it can feel impossible to get anyone to be interested in reading what you have to say. Whether it's the constant churn of technology, everyone’s shortened attention spans, or the struggle to get any kind of audience built up if you aren’t already well-known, it’s easy to feel nostalgic for the past. 

But for every ultrasuccessful blogger, there are so many more people who wrote their hearts out and never gained much traction. 

And even though the landscape is different than the past, that creative energy hasn’t just vanished. If you find yourself wishing for the old days of blogging, just make a blog! 

But if you’re tempted to be a curmudgeon, open your mind to how different creative streams offer different kinds of opportunities for writers. 

The best path toward finding an audience for what you like to write is to actually put your writing out there for people to find. So keep an open mind, see what sparks your creativity, and try something new! 

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.