Hi friends, happy Tuesday! I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting something completely different and something I’ve never posted before… I’m talking about my blogging-anniversary or my blogiversary! 🎉

Isn’t that a strange concept to wrap your head around? I know it is for me. For half my life I’ve been blogging… about my life, the books I’ve read, the movies and TV shows I’ve watched, the music I’ve listened to or seen.

Today truly marks my 13^th anniversary of blogging, crazy right?

I know I’ve talked about my origin story before, it’s in all those awards that ask you how you got started, so I don’t really want to repeat myself; but at the same time, I know I have a few new followers that may not know. I also have never really posted a “get to know me” type post. I’d like to think I’m a quiet blogger; I write my reviews; I participate in the tags/awards I’ve been tagged or nominated for; I participate in a few memes every once in a while; I have a few more personal posts (like my goals) but other than that I feel like I’ve managed to be pretty quiet and private. It’s the way I like it. Now, that’s not to say I’m all of a sudden changing and becoming this loud, over-sharer of a blogger, but this is something a little different.

The idea to actually write this post came up when I was reading Holly’s blog post The Book Blogger Oldie Tag; shout out to Holly because she’s an amazing blogger whose Instagram photos I adore! She had mentioned that she’s been blogging since the beginning of high school, which then got me thinking, well so have I!
The second reason and idea to write this post came when I reached 1000 followers on the blog at the beginning of this month! I’m truly in shock because I never thought much of my little place on the Internet, but I’m glad to see that so many people enjoy what I write; so truly thank you all so much… so here I kinda am, writing this post.

May 26, 2007 is the day I decided to join the blogging world… now at the time, I had no idea what I was signing up for. I was just a baby (although at the time I would have been so offended to be called that!) on the hunt for anything band related I could get my hands on. I was obsessed with the band My Chemical Romance, so pictures, videos, interviews, and I of course stumbled down the rabbit hole of fanfiction. Before anyone asks, yes, I did write fanfiction and I could probably dig it up off of a hard drive somewhere, but no one wants to read that… trust me. I guess after so many weeks of stalking this one website, I decided to make an account there; the site was called Buzznet.

I don’t think a lot of people have heard of this site, it’s a site based in California, but had users from all over the world. Now, a little backstory about the site because it still does exist, buzznet.com, but it is not what it used to be. This used to be an indie site that really focused on underground bands, alternative music and strived for originality from its users, whether it was writing, photography, art, you name it. It was super user friendly and I can tell you right now, I didn’t think this whole ‘blogging’ thing would stick, but I found a home there for roughly seven years. Not only did I find a home, I found friends there, some who I still connect with today.

Funny sidebar: I met one of my best friends on Buzznet before I met her in real life… we both went to the same high school and we listened to the same type of music we just connected on the site before meeting in person.

Over my seven years at Buzznet I posted a lot. Not only did I post my fanfiction (that was just my gateway into writing), I wrote concert reviews every once in a while, but I mostly focused on my photography. I posted photos of anything and everything; so much so that I decided to try my hand at 365-Day project in 2011 where I posted a photo every day for a year; I also did a 52-week project in 2012/13 where I posted a photo every week.

In 2010 is where I began writing book, movie and album reviews, they weren’t that great, but it got me to where I am today, and that’s what matters.

I even dabbled in making a vlog in 2012… that was my one and only video. It wasn’t bad… but it’s just a lot of work and I prefer to write than talk my points… I tend to lose my train of thought when I’m talking to a camera. I get so nervous! I’m a very bubbly person, who probably could thrive doing a vlog, but when I’m by myself in a video I’m horrible because I don’t know what to do with myself!

Another fun sidebar: some of you may have heard of the author Mark Oshiro, author of Anger is a Gift, and I just found out this past week will have a new novel out this September, Each of Us a Desert (thanks Sofi for letting me know about it! Click the link for her wonderful review!) they worked for Buzznet, as the community manager. In 2009 (2008?) they started a series called Mark Reads Twilight (click the link and you’re taken to their website and you can read the series too [I think it also became a book if I’m not mistaken]) which I absolutely fell in love with, I 100% recommend!

You can see, Buzznet has a piece of my heart as it’s where it all began for me!

In 2014 (I believe it was then, my memory is a little hazy) the site started to have a lot of issues. Users couldn’t log in (I had that issue and that’s when I sorta stopped using it) they couldn’t see photos; pages wouldn’t load; it was a nightmare. The site ownership I believe changed around this time too; they wanted to take the site from a user-based platform to a more ‘Hollywood glam’ (think E!) type platform. So they gave all its users a period where they could grab all their content they wanted to keep (remember I’d been on the site seven years… that’s a lot of bloody content!) so they could shut down all the accounts. Some people who were lucky enough got titled ‘Buzzmakers’ and could keep their account and content because they deemed their content good enough to generate views and traffic… I was not one of those lucky souls. We were told that we’d get a ZIP file of all content from the site… still waiting on that…

To say I’m bitter about the whole situation wouldn’t be wrong. I guess I knew it would happen eventually, since I could barely get on the site, but the way it was gone about wasn’t the greatest. You know if they had kept their word and provided the ZIP file I wouldn’t have had to spend nights taking screen shots of things I’d written so I wouldn’t lose them.

All that to say though, I was blogless, with no place to call home: enter WordPress.

I’d used WordPress in the past for school projects and it was easy enough to use and understand so I thought, why not use it for my blog. I technically already had a blog with WordPress that I used for school, so I just made a ‘new author’ under the same account and in February of 2015 Meghan’s Blog was born. Yes, super creative. Although, that first blog on Buzznet was called ‘meghan93’ so, it was a step up.

It wasn’t until 2016 where I thought, hmm, maybe “Meghan’s Blog” isn’t that terrific of a name. It told you nothing about my blog, so what did I do? I pulled the thesaurus out and created what is now “Meghan’s Whimsical Explorations & Reviews”.

It’s kind of a trip to see myself here, 13 years later, first of all still blogging, but able to look back on a whole past. When I think about it I’ve documented SO much of my life, granted most of it got wiped years ago, but I did manage to save a bunch.

Over the past 5 years being Whimsically Meghan, I’ve managed to incorporate my old content on this blog in some way or another, whether it was in a throwback Thursday review, where I posted reviews I wrote between 2010-2014, or flashback Fridays where I showcased photos I had taken anywhere from 2009-2014. I’ve tried to make myself a home here and so far it’s stuck. I plan to be here for a while; who knew that when I started a blog looking for band content it would create a lifestyle for me. I can’t see myself not blogging, it’s so ingrained in me now.

I don’t know what the future holds, but here’s to the next 13 years!

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you! Thank you for reading, liking, commenting, and following my blog! 😀