“If you put it online, it’s there forever.”
The warning of my formative years. Back when having a MySpace profile was all the rage and, if you wanted to ensure your scum-of-the-Earth ex-boyfriend who’d broken your heart couldn’t contact you, you could turn off your cell phone and tie up the land line with dial-up.
(What’s that? You don’t know what dial-up is? Oh, child, allow me to educate you.)
(Yes, I mostly posted this because I wanted a throwback to the sound of internet from the dark ages.)
(Also, yes, it really did used to take *that* long to connect to the internet. 🤦♀️)
Right, where were we? Scum-of-the-Earth—oh! No, the internet forever.
As it turns out, dial-up is now in museums, but “forever” is not. Case in point, if you want to shut someone down, prove them wrong, or show the world they are not the genuine person they now claim to be, it is extremely easy to grab a screenshot from 10 years ago and share it with a scathing comment.
(Behold! One of the adult warnings of my childhood was not just adults trying to be adult-sounding. What madness is this?)
🧘♀️
I’m losing the plot a bit today, but I’ll get it together because I really want to address how the “forever” of the internet is not only beneficial for accountability. And for the record, I fully support accountability.
Sometime last year, I took down my old blog posts, hence why I am restarting my blog in 2026. In the before times, I mainly hosted book reviews via virtual book tours, which I hated to take down because books are my jam. But the blog itself was an utter mess and needed to be cleaned up, something I just did not have time to do.
When 2026 brought free time (yes, really), I decided it was time to revitalize the blog. This meant reformatting posts, replacing huge image files with compressed versions, tracking down content that got lost in the shuffle—the works. Sometimes, this meant rummaging through my Goodreads profile (which I have not used since switching to Storygraph last year, which I love), and even then, there were bits and pieces I just couldn’t find.
(Pro Tip: The internet is only forever if you post to the internet.)
After three days of revitalizing, I am thrilled to report I now have over 60 reviews back up. I’m hoping there are more to come, but since I switched from Blogger to WordPress mid-2020 and my Blogger domain expired, the rest might take a few extra steps. For now, though, if you want to browse through some book reviews, here you go.
(Huh, “expired.” Maybe the internet isn’t always forever.)
What mind-numbing but ultimately rewarding task have you accomplished lately? Drop a comment so we can celebrate together.
Or if you want to reminisce about dial-up.
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
P.S. A big thanks to Timrael from Pixabay for the image.