Protecting My Voice Online: The Move to Bluehost

Yesterday I moved my blog's hosting from Wordpress.com to Bluehost where I am now self hosting my blog and domain. This was considerably more work and upkeep than just keeping it on a platform like Wordpress, and anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows I've moved around plenty, but this felt highly necessary.

Anyone who has been following the news and current events has seen that freedom of speech is a big issue right now. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert have both lost shows due to politics. I have several friends on various social media platforms who have had accounts banned or suspended over what they said online, some things weren't even that political or controversial.

I've seen many creators moving off the standard socials to places like Patreon or Substack, I had considered this and even made accounts at those places. The problem is, both are also a hosted platform owned by billionaires or big corporations. So, I made the call to self host. While its a lot more work ongoing to maintain my own site and not have the discoverability I may have on substack, I'm far less likely to lose this site over someone being offended. Granted, if push came to shove, Bluehost COULD yank my domain and boot me off, but not as likely or easily as they could on a standard platform.

I also realize, my content isn't wildly inciteful. I post about mental health, wellness, spirituality and art. Not exactly topics that rile people up, but I feel more peace of mind knowing I own all the content and am not subject to a single person's whims on what is acceptable content or who gets to read it.

So this is where we are now. I really like Bluehost so far and felt quite accomplished yesterday after hours of messing with this and getting this site built with my storefront moved over.

For anyone wishing to blog or have a website, I can't speak to if self hosting is right for you. A couple things to ask yourself:

Do you know how to build a website or have done one before?

Do you know your way around Wordpress software?

Do you want to be responsible for ALL your own promotion and reach?

Do you hate yourself?

Ok, joking on the last one. But not really, its a lot of work but also rewarding. Those are some of the things to weigh when you decide where to put your blog. I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of substack. I'm a huge fan of free speech, not quite an absolutist but close. But there are a lot of full on alt right blogs on that page and the owners seem fine with it. If it could just be ignored that is one thing, but I've seen left leaning writers' blogs with ads on the bottom of their substack for a Nazi blog. You have no control what blogs they promote on your own page.

Here I made the choice not to run google ads. I welcome everyone to subscribe to this page so I can eventually move away from Facebook. But I will always keep it free and ad free and my goal is to monetize through art and merch sales. But I want to keep the content here a free and open place for people to connect.

So that is where I am now. Hopefully I haven't completely lost my mind, but I am taking less meds, so maybe that's a factor. Either way, feel free to subscribe by email and join me on this crazy ride of art and chaos. I look forward to learning from each other.