The 2023 Anthropology Blog Resurvey Project #2

Well, by now most of you have heard the news that this blog is closing down. That whole conversation was happening in the last couple of months, but really something that we’d been talking about for the past few years. Back in 2021 we all agreed to try to revive this blog, but things just didn’t take off. There was just so much going on at the time. This site, like many others, was a casualty of the mass exodus to Twitter, the decline of blogging, people moving on to other things in their careers, others getting slammed with kids and careers (that was me), and the global pandemic…among other things. So, we’re closing things down.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been back around here a bit more lately, right at the end. For the past year or so I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of spaces we once had, and what we have lost. Here’s what I wrote in December 2022:

About 10 years ago, the online anthropology community looked pretty different. I’m not saying it was some utopia—it wasn’t—but there were some aspects that I do miss. Back then there seemed to be a more connected and coherent online community. In some ways, it was great.

There were tons and tons of blogs, which included the former iteration of this site (SM), and others like Neuroanthropology (Daniel Lende and Greg Downey), Somatosphere, John Hawks’ Weblog, Powered by Osteons (Kristina Killgrove), Context and Variation (Kate Clancy), From the Annals of Anthroman (John L. Jackson), and of course Jason Antrosio’s Living Anthropologically, among many others. 

And this is how I closed out that post:

All this has me thinking, once again, about the need for not just making new spaces, but also holding and using the spaces we already have. That includes this site, which has been somewhat…underutilized for the last few years (IMO). As Sarah Kendzior said recently: “Do not cede territory in an information war.” I’ll leave it there for now.

I still agree with Kendzior on that point. My initial plan was to try to revive this site so we didn’t cede this particular ground. But I think the larger point here is less about one particular site than it is about how we write, where we write, and what kinds of platforms we put our time and energy into. It’s also about how we share and interact with one another, and finding ways to keep those networks and connections intact.

So…I’ve been thinking a lot about blogs as things that still work, that are still reliable, and still around. I’m not the only one who has been thinking along these lines. And when Twitter just kept taking repeated turns for the worse, lots of people were talking about all the loss, yes, but also other options and possibilities. I think many folks were wondering, too, why we had gone all in on a private platform that could be dismantled so easily. I was, at least. 

This past July, Colleen Morgan, my pal from the old anthro-blogging days, posted this on Twitter and Mastodon:

Band together. Help each other out. Salvage what is good. In the spirit of her words, I posted ‘Salvaging what is good’ here on Anthrodendum. Colleen followed up on her site, in a bit of old-school one-blog-linking-to-another kind of back and forth. While you might think that ‘Salvaging’ post was just a bunch of sentimental ‘things used to be good and now they suck’ kind of lamentation, my aim was more pragmatic. I asked people to leave some breadcrumbs, so to speak:

Let’s use this space to share what we’re all thinking and were we’re going for some rest, repair, and reconciliation. I think many of us have already lost a lot of those little connections we once had on these platforms. Let’s see what we can save and maybe leave some breadcrumbs for where we’re all going. What are you thinking and where are you going next? Mastodon? Bluesky? Post? Staying offline and just going surfing, hiking, or walking more? Something else? Let me know in the comments below. 

A few people commented, and that’s a lot more than we’ve seen around here in a while. So it’s a start. As you can see, I have been on this retrospective kick–in the interests of thinking about what’s next–for a while now. That brings us to the anthro blog survey project, which is a continuation of all these conversations. I had assumed that the so-called anthroblogosphere was dead, but it turns out that’s not entirely the case. Rumors of its demise have been, well, somewhat exaggerated.

I went through all 188 blogs that Jason Antrosio listed in his roundup of 2017 anthro blogs. I modified my methods slightly and decided to count blogs that had a post as of June 2023 as ‘active.’ Of all 188 sites, 111 (59%) are no longer around, and 77 (41%) are still active. Now, granted, 59% gone is a big loss. But there’s actually quite a lot more still active than I’d expected. See what happens when you actually do the work, and look around, instead of just assuming?

A few thoughts. First, people are still out there writing and sharing ideas. But I’m not seeing a ton of comments on sites. Some more than others. What seems to be missing are all the links between these sites/projects.

Sure, this is partially a problem of the decline of platforms and all the changes that have happened. So it’s a tech/infrastructure issue in part. But I think it’s also partially about how people have changed their use of the internet and social media in more recent years. It’s an increasing reliance on feeds and algorithms, in which we scroll and tend to take what we get served…rather than having to actively go out and look for certain sites, people, conversations.

Maybe I’m off base here. But this is something I like about Mastodon so far. You have to dive in and search for subjects, conversations, etc. They aren’t just handed to you. Search hashtags and all that. It takes time.

Back in the day with blogs, people tended to link to other blogs and then check in on various sites fairly regularly. We’re missing that these days. And a lot of what’s happening–what folks are writing and thinking about–get skipped over or just lost in the shuffle. But it’s still out there. 

We can change this, you know. Using some old things, and by making some new ones. Hint, hint.

In the interest of salvaging what is good from the old anthroblogosphere, in the next post I am going to link to all the (77) blogs that are still active. It will be an old-fashioned blogroll of sorts, all in the name of preservation and possibilities. In the meantime, leave some comments, breadcrumbs, and thoughts of your own below. And thanks for stopping by.