why did i choose bear?
of all the hosting places i could've platformed my website on, why did i choose bear blog? if you were ever curious, it's time for some 'splaining.
so, sit back and grab some popcorn as i take you through the all-over-the-place history of my website design adventures! blue skidoo, we can too!
my first website was actually hosted on supertape, a website builder designed for musicians. they can link their music accounts on various platforms, list merch, tour dates, etc. but as music became more of a hobby for me, and visual arts became my true path in life, i eventually abandoned and deleted my old site. (i do not have a screenshot of the site, and it's long gone by now. sorry.) but, it was good groundwork for building an art website i could be proud of.
...which was something i couldn't really get with straw page. straw is one of those drag-and-drop website builders where you arrange the page assets by mouse. it has a very casual "internet meme" vibe, one that i often didn't relate to. (i still don't know what "vro" means.) but the editor itself was broken in the 2 years i used it; it was full of bugs that made editing my site a pain. HTML embeds wouldn't work, so i had to link out to youtube to showcase my video work. it felt more like a landing page than a website. and there wasn't any blogging, even though the developer said it was coming soon for months; i almost, no joke, made a blog page that just linked out to future dreamwidth articles (which was my initial blog platform plan; more on that later).
and then earlier today, i went over to the site and found that they FINALLY fixed all those issues. by now, it's too little, too late. my straw site collected dust for months until i finally deleted it today.
as seen in the pictures above, the straw site went through 3 iterations. the first was full of GIFs and wordart, but the second and third laid the groundwork for what would eventually become my bear site's look (the fourth image). which brings me to the titular question...
why did i choose bear?
it's simple, really. i just wanted a website and blogging platform that was easy to load, easy to run, easy to navigate, had everything you could want right there, clear and concise, but still with a touch of the whimsy present in the rest of my art. bear blog had all of that and then some. it also helps that, by mingling with the indie web community, i learned a few HTML and CSS coding tips to truly make the site shine! dreamwidth was my second choice, but i didn't use it much and never posted anything. bear just clicked with me immediately.
and so, i'm happy to choose bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ
and you know, there's nothing wrong with building a site with a drag-and-drop editor service like carrd, squarespace, or straw. everyone has to start somewhere. but if you're going to build your own corner of the web, you should do research on what platform is right for you. and for me, bear definitely was... and straw definitely wasn't.