Today I accidentally clicked on a folder of bookmarks containing my “daily feed” of scooter blogs, boards, and groups from about twelve years ago, when 2strokebuzz was going strong. Faced with 60 open tabs, I thought it’d be fun to tally how many of those sites were still live. The results:
Half (mostly blogs, including some “official” Vespa blogs) are long gone. A few (mostly European shops and industry sites and groups like Modern Buddy and Modern Vespa) are still going strong. A bunch are frozen in time in the late 2010s (like the beloved scoot.net), or changed topics (usually “my new baby” or “my new motorcycle”) and fizzled out anyway. Only three are like this one… still around, with an occasional update.
What’s it mean? Well, nothing much. I guess the biggest bummer is that blogging is dead. It was fun while it lasted, but it got too commercial and competitive and probably most people (like me) got tired of spending our time doing research and writing content that would immediately be reposted without attribution on fifty other blogs that actually made money.
Did all these people lose interest in scooters? Did they all transition to social media? Is there anything like 2strokebuzz out there today? Many of you tell me you miss 2SB, and I miss it too, but no one reads blogs anymore. Trying to re-establish a foothold in the clickbait/hype/repost/shitty meme world of social media is not something I’m interested in. If you know of any sites or feeds that regularly publish curated, researched, useful, and (dare I dream) low-key scooter information, I’d love to know about them. Maybe I’ll start a new bookmark folder.
And hey, keep in touch! I still see a lot of you, but I haven’t heard from some of you in years. I’m still riding, and I occasionally post ride recaps and other content at VCOA Chicago.
