Good Golly joins Bear Blogs!
Throughout the lifespan of Good Golly Zines I've really been figuring things out on the go. I created an Instagram account the night before my first radio interview on CBC Ottawa Morning. I made a website for the launch of Mid City because I wanted a home for people to learn about the project and how I was approaching it. When I knew I wanted to continue Mid City beyond the original four-month scope, I created an online shop on Ko-Fi to sell zines and offer supporters the change to support the project and help recoup printing costs.
Although I have experience with WordPress, I build a site for Good Golly Zines on SquareSpace to try out a new platform. I had fun building the site and loved personalizing it to my style, but SquareSpace is expensive and the CEO is a billionaire. I don't love that.
One thing I've learned from the Palestinian-led BDS movement is how powerful our spending is. Boycotts are effective and we can, and should, think about where our money is going. Ease isn't everything and convenience shouldn't trump ethics. I'm still learning but in my journey to give less money to billionaires, I started looking for an alternative.
My friend Holly ([@citypiegonpress]9https://www.instagram.com/citypigeonpress/) on Instagram) told me about Bear Blogs in June. She showed me Sam's blog first, which I loved, and I spent some time flipping through other sites. I like the simplicity, the community, and the creator's transparency (like the change log and the site developer's Bear Manifesto). I also like the idea of building an online presence somewhere that's somewhat removed from capitalism.
I've been wanting to write more, beyond the writing I do for Mid City and this site's blogging feature will be a fun avenue for experimentation. Although Mid City will remain primarily print-based, I'm interesting in publishing some articles from the zine online here so people without hard copies can still access some content, especially the important stuff, like my City Hall 101 explainer from Issue 5 or my timeline of Lansdowne 2.0 that I wrote for Issue 1.
I still have work to do. I want to upload more content into the blog space and refine the layout, but I think I've made a good start on this new platform! I'm excited to continue exploring and I'd love to hear your feedback, if you have any.
What would you like to see on this page? What is missing from this site that you liked on my previous site?
If you've been following along with this project for a while or if you're new to Mid City and Good Golly Zines, thanks for your interest and support!