The World of Kip – 7 Years on..

The Facebook memory machine churned out some interesting factoids about today – one was from 7 years ago (which is roughly when the picture above was taken) –

I knew I’d been blogging since August 2008 (actually before that on another platform), but I thought I’d had my old .blogspot.co.uk domain for a lot longer. Seems not! This blog, on this domain is actually seven years old!

I had a little look back on the Internet Archive to see if I could get a screenshot of how it looked 7 years ago, but alas, I can’t! One thing that I’d forgotten was that it started life as ‘The world of Kip’, before switching a few months later to kiphakes.com.

It’s pretty fucking crazy (and indeed sad) that Blogging is the longest relationship I’ve had – this blog is five years younger than my oldest child, four years OLDER than my youngest, and its seen me through some very challenging times.

The blog started off as an online diary of random musings and banal pieces about me, and I’m happy to say I’ve continued the tradition – right up to now! I’m not one of these old school bloggers that hates newer bloggers, there are so many fantastic bloggers around now (and a swath of utterly shit ones) – but it’s fantastic to have so many people out there, voices in the crowd.

So what have I learnt in seven years of blogging? A lot! Most of all though, it’s to keep pushing yourself, trying not to get in a rut and NOT WORRY ABOUT FIGURES. When this place started I was getting a few people a week looking at my stuff, but I just wrote for the love of it, not for the recognition or freebies. Blogging is a weird business though – my posts that I smash out in a 15 minute fit of rage seem to get more love than those I’ve carefully crafted and spent hours trying to phrase ‘just so’. Either way, I’m happy that usually at most times of day or night, there’s someone, somewhere reading the words I’ve banged out whilst sat in my pants (like now!)

I’ve not really won any awards – I have been called ‘The Jay-Z of blogging’ a ‘Digital Influencer’ and a ‘Professional Blogger’ (all by me – in my mind) – most of all I’ve been called a narcissist, self promoting, cunt – which is painfully accurate. I like that I’m not really in the Mason-esque blogging circles of self congratulary, arse licking, I’m shunned by pretty much every group going, and largely disliked my parental blogging peers. Do I care?

No.

I started here as a simple place to empty my mind, sure the design is a bit flasher these days, and I’ve got more than 5 followers on Twitter, but the idea is the same. The free stuff is great, the trips are fun, but I started without those and would happily continue that way – blogging is personal, it’s intimate, but most of all – it’s FUN.

See you in 2022 ?