It’s been five years… [50th post]

This blog was born after watching Vaanam Kottattum in theaters. I remember that night distinctly. I asked Amma if it was ok to review movies on Google. Instead, I started a Google site that week, so in a sense, this blog was born February 2020. I kept that site as hidden as possible until finally creating this new one. I consider this one as my real blog though, since it isn't hidden anymore. I'm not sure when exactly I created this revamped website, but it happened during the summer that year. And so, I consider this summer as its fifth anniversary. This is a COVID project that survived pretty much everything afterwards, through cringe and confusion, and I'm proud of that.

This blog has reached over 63 countries, has over 3.4K views, and over 128.8K impressions (whatever that means). That's wild. These are all just numbers though — something I don't really care about. I want to have stuff to look back on when I'm older, so that's what this is, and that's exactly where this blog will go — more movies, but also more of everything else.

As a [sorta late] fifth anniversary post, I want to write about why I continued this blog and why I watch movies. I don't think I've ever really written about my reasoning, yet it's something I ask nearly everybody I know regarding their passions.

Pretty quickly after I started writing reviews, it began to feel like a chore. Like something else to check off my to-do list. As a result, the quality of my writing went down, and I didn't feel inclined to write a review whenever I watched a movie. Only sometimes, when I felt so strongly moved by a movie, did I sit down and pour my heart out into a mediocre review. That's what these recent ones have been. With school, my never-ending list of tasks took over my life, and I didn't have the time to write for my blog anymore. So, I just stopped writing for the time being, but I kept checking in on my website from time to time.

My love for movies never died though (thankfully). I love learning about how a film is made, from the origin of the story to the final edits. I even got to be a part of a short film recently, which was super cool. I love the experience of watching a movie, especially in theaters. It’s gotten expensive to watch movies now, with ticket and streaming prices skyrocketing. Regardless, I just needed a break from having a task attached to something I love.

I did partake in a few other film-related endeavors (both academic and not) during my break from this blog, but none felt as free as writing. Unlike a lot of other movie-related things, writing is free (mostly). I don't have to buy a software or subscribe to a program to write my thoughts. I can improve my writing just by doing it more and more, which is why I want to open up my blog to more than just movies. I want to do more, rather than just think about doing.

If there’s anything you take away from all of this, it’s that I’m determined to keep this blog alive for at least another five years.