Semeiotikos

Observing signs on the interwebs since 2005…

It started with Myspace. In the early days of the social media boom, like many of my Gen X brethren, I got a Myspace page and began fiddling around. It wasn’t long before I turned my page into a proto-blogging site. Then, in 2007, I followed a friend’s lead and jumped over to Blogger, dispensing with the knick knacks and silly trappings of Myspace to focus solely on “blogging.”

On the original semeiotikos, I bucked blogging convention and wrote long-form musings instead of quick, quippy blurbs. I did not (shocker) gain a large, loyal following. But that wasn’t the point. The point was I was writing. I’d set out on a path to be “a writer” long ago, but I’d always struggled to make myself do the thing I wanted to do. Write.

From 2005 to 2009 I wrote more regularly and consistently than I ever had before. I devoted a substantial amount of my critical and creative energies to what was essentially writing conference papers for fun.

Those posts—that writing—led me back to school, to pursue my PhD.

Rhetorical Genealogy

There are two versions of semeiotikos. In 2009, I not only quit my job, sold the house, and moved with my wife to Boston, I also ditched Blogger for WordPress. The idea was to “create a more robust site” for my musings, a “site” rather than a ‘blog.’ I created page sets for projects I’d begun on Blogger, and I began migrating my favorite posts to the new site. Then I started my doctoral program and… my output slowed to a crawl, then stopped. My last “new” post went up on December 18, 2013: “Lions, Tigers, and Tornados: Neko Case at the Orpheum.”

I still like that site, and every now and then, I fantasize about getting back to regular posting. I’d like to finish my 25 for 25 project (preferably before I hit 50). But it doesn’t make much sense to toggle between two sites, and since this one has become my ‘professional’ home, I will add new posts here instead of there.