The Culturist Turns 10
Washington, D.C., circa 1910. "King of Cadenza", Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative. Via Shorpy
Today marks The Culturist’s 10th anniversary. Ten. Whole. Years.
When I started this blog in December 2009, it was a natural next step after sending frequent emails to friends and colleagues in Dubai about things to do or see in the city. I always prioritised sharing what personally interested me with the hope that there are others out there with similar interests.
Ten years on, the world of blogging has taken a back seat to social media. Additionally, it appears that podcasting is the new blogging with the amount of new podcasts published everyday.
Attention spans have been reduced and more and more organisations and businesses are only using social media apps to share information instead of also ensuring their websites are up to date. The problem here is so much information gets lost on social media, whereas a dedicated website should be the go to place to find the information one needs, and also an archive of past information and events. Many cultural organisations and businesses here still don’t understand the importance of an archive.
For me, maintaining a traditional blog has become an act of defiance to the short attention spans and fast paced consumption of information. The Culturist has now become far more personal, in addition to sharing my opinions and personal interests, it is also now a form of a public record of the cultural history of the UAE since 2009.
I wonder about the state of the internet 10 years from now. Will dot com exist? Will social media replace all other websites? What will happen to all the digital pages online? How will they be archived?
Lately I have been thinking about publishing a physical version of the blog, featuring a selection of writings from the past 10 years. I am testing a few options, so watch this space.
In the meantime, I want to thank everyone that spends time reading and sharing my blog and hope you can come back for more.