As of January 15th 2020, Diary of a Disabled Person is officially 3 years old! The terrible two’s are finally over, & like a rarely-seen aunt I simply cannot believe how much time has passed.
The past year of blogging has, as always, seen some changes to the way I work & the content I produce. I’ve won awards, expanded my following, taken on new projects, & even started making videos!
A year ago I had 200 WordPress followers, & my website had been viewed a few thousand short of 80,000 times. A year has seen me gain over 130 new followers, & the 100,000 views mark is so much closer! Considering that I spend no money on advertising, & rely almost entirely on social media & word-of-mouth, I’d say that’s pretty substantial growth.
Last January I accepted my first award of the year, the Flawesome award, & over the course of the year I have a accrued a few more, bringing me to a grand total of eight awards. The support of other bloggers has been confidence-boosting, to the point where I launched my own award to recognise the excellence of other bloggers & content-producers out there; The Fearless Snowflake award. I hope that with this award, I can return some of the gratitude & support I have received back to a community I am proud to be a part of.
I also released my third series of short stories over the summer, which seemed to be well-received. My workload means there won’t be any more series for a while, but I hope to return to the format for specials such as the Christmas edition a few weeks ago!
I’m not only present on the internet as a blogger, & can be found on social media too! My Facebook page & linked group (@diaryofadisabledperson) has seen some growth, in particular receiving support as I connected with more people on my personal profile, including from several professional wrestlers. My Instagram (also @diaryofadisabledperson) has seen some growth too, although I limit my time on this platform due to some of the more toxic elements I have seen there (including creepy messages that I can only presume have never actually worked at wooing anyone).
As always, the majority of my social media activity has been swearing about ableism on Twitter (@WheelsofSteer). At the time of writing my following has more than doubled in the past year, & I’m hoping to reach the 10k mark in the next few months. I’ve had quite a few people take to social media to lambaste me for taking such an interest in the statistics, & I would hope I never let my drive to increase my following lead me to do anything morally ambiguous, or “shady” as the kids call it these days. However, as someone who has always been mathematically-minded, I cannot help taking an interest & perhaps a little pride in watching those numbers climb.
Perhaps my largest development of the past year in relation to my blog started out as live-streaming on Twitter, & due to a mix of technical & accessibility difficulties, evolved into setting up a YouTube channel & producing the fortnightly show Weekend on Wheels for approximately 6 months. Making videos is definitely the most challenging aspect of my blogging work; I have a very basic qualification in IT & in performing arts, & up until a few months ago had never presented or edited a video. I built a camera stand out of Lego, used my phone to film myself, & downloaded some free video-editing software. After much searching on YouTube for instructions on how to use the software, ironically using videos that had been produced on said software, I began to learn the ropes. 6 months in I have decided to bring my edited show to an end, but will continue to release vlogs instead, & I have a humble following on YouTube to show for my efforts. I’m no PewDiePie, but then again I’m also not prone to racist outbursts, so perhaps that is a good thing.
Cliché as it sounds, I would be nothing without you – my readers, followers, commenters, & occasional trolls. Social activism can often feel like I’m screaming into a void, & compared to other “influencers” I’m not even worth a footnote, but I still feel like I’m making progress. I set up this blog to educate people about disability, & it would appear that I am doing just that. Constantly comparing yourself to others on social media has well-documented adverse mental health effects, & so I try not to let it dishearten me.
Over the next year I hope to keep producing high-quality content, both on here & YouTube. I’d also like to keep growing my following, to reach more & more people with my message of equality, & perhaps even to start on the book manuscript I’ve been promising for quite some time…
Here’s to another year of the little blog that could!
