In the past year that I've created Cake Potato, I've gotten quite a few questions about my blog and about why I do it at all, from both friends and potential employers since I list this site on my resume. So here I am, breaking the fourth wall (except not really) to tell you about my past in blogging and why I continue to pursue it. It's a bit of a lengthy #throwback post featuring photos that I took when I was 13, but if you're interested, have a read!
-FINDING A NICHE-
If we're talking about the beginning of when I truly began to 'blog', or really just put my thoughts out on the internet, I started my first Tumblr account when I was in the 7th grade around 2010. I had my little point-and-shoot camera, and I took photos of family vacations or the stuffed animals I'd sew. Really it was all just mundane things, but when I started photographing them, everything out there started to seem more interesting. It was so much fun to take photos, and while I enjoyed putting my random middle-schooler thoughts out there, I found it just as fun reading others'.I ended up making several Tumblr accounts, and I shifted away from taking my own photos, since it wasn't sustainable for my first blog, and I wanted more content on there. I began following blogs, 'reblogging', and most of my original content came from the occasional text post. On the site, I found my community (err.. fandoms), made online friends, and grew to find comfort in my own little corner of the Internet.
As an introvert, I never found sufficient satisfaction in hanging out with people, so I spent a lot of time on Tumblr. And as I drifted away from my friends (and moving away from them in 2012), my attachment to Tumblr grew even stronger, as I struggled to meet new people in my high school in Washington. With nobody to turn to for friendship, I felt solace through the Internet.
-CREATING CONTENT-
After my junior year in high school, after connecting to a few people in my new school, I felt distant enough from my blogs to be able to delete them. I thought I didn't need Tumblr as an outlet anymore, but I felt empty afterwards, as though a part of me was lost. I tried making a WordPress account with text-only posts, but it still felt like it wasn't enough. So during my senior year's holiday break, I opened up a Blogger account and posted a photo of my Christmas presents. After sugar, spice, and everything nice, Cake Potato was born!My blog combines two of my favorite hobbies, photography and writing, and merges them into diary-like entries about my life. The feeling of being able to take my own photos and write my own words is so satisfying. No matter how busy I get, I've been trying to keep up with Cake Potato, and I couldn't bear to turn away from blogging since.
P.S. I've done a little guest blogging on Mylio's site over here about moving to Seattle!
