Blogs have been around on the internet for a long time. As a key form of personal website, they've played an important role.
But recently I came across a Zhihu article that made a peculiar argument about what gives a blog value. It insisted that blogs should serve others, that they must provide useful content for readers, and that only blogs meeting this standard deserve to be called good or valuable. Blogs that simply express personal feelings and daily life, by contrast, were dismissed as worthless — and the author didn't hold back in criticizing them. Reading it left me with a nagging, uncomfortable feeling I couldn't quite shake.
I initially assumed this was just someone who didn't understand personal blogs. But then I noticed something that surprised me: the owner of a "quality blog directory" site had endorsed the same article, quoting it at length, agreeing with it strongly, and using it as the admission standard for their directory. That genuinely caught me off guard.
I can understand that a particular blog directory might prefer certain types of personal blogs and set thresholds accordingly. That's fine — entirely reasonable. But when the threshold-setting comes bundled with wholesale endorsement of the claim that "personal emotional blogs have no value," and with a fundamental critique of their very existence, I start to doubt myself: Is that really true? Have I fundamentally misunderstood what a personal blog is?
Here's some of what that article said (partial):
The most common mistake is a fundamental misunderstanding of a blog's value — assuming a personal blog exists to express "personal feelings and thoughts." That's the most frequent error. Nobody cares about your emotional outpourings; they're of little use to them. You write a long, beautiful piece full of rambling self-pity and personal mood, and aside from your mother, who's going to want to read it? It has little value to anyone else.
Using blog content to serve others isn't complicated. Write a post about which store is having a sale — if you clearly explain the time, location, the products involved, and the discount, that's a valuable post. It has practical value for a lot of people.
So why did it bother me? After thinking it over, I concluded that the author doesn't really want a "personal blog" — they want a knowledge base, a wiki, or a guidebook like Xiaohongshu. The author fell into a trap: they narrowed "personal blog" down to a knowledge-sharing site or utility site built for others, misunderstood what a blog is, and then confidently accused everyone else of misreading it. This utilitarian misreading narrows the definition of a blog beyond recognition.
To check whether my thinking held up, I did some research. Let's start with the history of blogs — I'll use a description from an encyclopedia for clarity:
On December 17, 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term "Weblog." The abbreviation "blog" was invented by Peter Merholz, who jokingly split "Weblog" into the phrase "we blog" in the sidebar of his site "Peterme.com."
In other words, from the very beginning, a blog was a public-facing journal site — and a journal is a form of diary, a record. A personal blog is, by nature, a public personal diary. So why did this author define it as something that must "serve others"? Wasn't the whole point of blogs from the start to showcase personal life and emotion?
The encyclopedia definition is also quite clear:
A blog (short for weblog) is a type of personal website in the form of an online diary, where a person records their life, expresses emotions, or shares information through posts, images, or videos. Blog posts are usually arranged in reverse chronological order, newest to oldest. Many bloggers focus on commenting on a particular subject or news, while others use their blogs as personal diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, hyperlinks to other blogs or websites, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments interactively is an important element of many blogs. Most blog content is primarily text-based, though some blogs focus on art, photography, video, music, podcasts, and other topics. Blogs are part of the social media network.
From this definition, it's clear that only later in their development did blogs gradually evolve from a simple online journal into a rich medium for sharing skills and life tips.
The value of a blog isn't necessarily about what it creates for others — it's about what it creates for the author. Some people blog purely to record their lives, so that their future selves can look back and reflect. Whether anyone actually reads it, whether it gets traffic — these people don't care. Value isn't something others decide for you; it's something you decide for yourself. Something doesn't have to be created for others to be valuable — being important to yourself is itself a kind of value.
I've been blogging since the 2000s — nearly 20 years now, starting around primary school. Because I've written so much and wanted to write about so many things, I ended up splitting my writing across multiple blogs, each showing a different side of me. This site is just one of several. My posts have covered personal feelings, life updates, film reviews, technical sharing, life guides, and values — but I've never believed a blog should take one fixed form, sharing only one fixed kind of content.
Some of my past blogs were indeed built to output value for others, just as that Zhihu author described. But after more than a decade of writing, I noticed something felt missing. What I wrote usually wasn't an expression of myself — which completely contradicted the original purpose of blogging. And the people who read my blog were almost all there to extract my knowledge and experience. I couldn't make friends through the blog who truly connected with me on a deeper level.
This blog, by contrast, serves two purposes: recording my growth and life experiences, and filtering for the friends who actually want to understand me as a person. If someone doesn't want to read it, I take that as a sign they're not interested in me.
Without a doubt, this blog has helped me meet many friends I can have real conversations with — and it's filtered out plenty of people whose values don't align with mine. Looked at from another angle: if a blog expressing personal emotion resonates with someone who's had similar experiences, isn't that also creating value for others?
ChatGPT-4.0 put this well:
- Ignoring the value of personal expression: As a platform for self-expression, a personal blog has irreplaceable meaning for its author. By sharing personal experiences, emotions, and perspectives, a blog can help the author build deeper emotional connections with readers.
- Diversity of blog purposes: Not every blog exists to serve readers or deliver concrete value. Some lean toward artistic expression, personal growth records, or communication within a specific community. These blogs may not fit the article's definition, but they still have meaning and value.
- The importance of content diversity: A successful blog often needs varied content to meet the needs of different readers. Focusing solely on practicality can limit a blog's creativity and forms of expression.
Of course, none of this is meant to defend blogs that are pure content spam. If even your future self wouldn't want to read what you've written, then such a blog probably isn't valuable to anyone — yourself included.