A Moderate Storytelling Blog in Today's Internet

Since I started this blog, I’ve been trying to decide what kind of blog this is and how to sum it up and explain it nicely. I didn’t want to think of this as a travel blog, because I didn’t want to limit myself to just travel related posts. Nor did I want to label this as a personal growth blog for the same reasons, I didn’t want to box myself in and set expectations that would limit what I write here. But the thought of a ‘miscellaneous’ blog also didn’t set well with me, that felt disorganized and without purpose, and it doesn’t answer the question of ‘what kind of blog is realisticwanderlust?’ because I don’t want the answer to be: “I donno, it’s a blog about whatever”.

Yesterday night right before I fell asleep, I was randomly thinking about this topic again and it was like the clouds parted and I came to a clear conclusion as to what kind of blog I want realisticwanderlust to be. It has been, and is going to be a storytelling blog. I love the sound of that and it perfectly captures what I want to do here. I’m not here to be a travel blogger or a personal growth blogger or to just write guides, or how to’s or clickbait-y stuff, I’m here to tell stories. But that’s going to create a slew of challenges for me in trying to grow this little storytelling blog in today’s internet environment.


A picture here seems nice to break up the wall of text. I didn't want to find some boring stock image to try and fit the vibe of this article, so instead here's a rubber chicken that I saw trying to fit in with the other real chickens being cooked at a hawker stall in Singapore.
I feel like I’m going to get crushed by other sites and blogs in terms of SEO, and my content isn’t algorithm friendly, not in the way I want to write them. It’s also not attention seeking in nature, nor is it radical, controversial, or anger inducing, which a classic tactic to keep your readers coming back, getting ‘engaged’ with your articles and ultimately growing your voice online.

But the world has enough of that kind of content. And the evidence is all around us in how that has influenced the world to become more radical, isolated and divided just in these past few years.

I find myself wanting to get away from all that ever time I browse the internet, I want to read moderate content, I want to read stories without an agenda. I want to read something that doesn’t end up making me feel more negative about myself or the world than before I started reading it. However it’s harder than it should be to find that kind of content online. I’m not sure if it’s because there is a lack of that kind of content online, or that it is inherently SEO unfriendly and unfriendly to the recommendation algorithms that now control what we find online.


I’ve created moderately successful internet content before mainly on YouTube with 2 different channels that had over 35,000 subscribers and average videos of up to 50-100k per video. I have some perspective from both the content creator side and the consumer side on what gets views, and what doesn’t.

  • Specific, laser focused content are the ones that are most SEO friendly, they hit all the right keywords. Your blog or website becomes marked by SEO algorithms and recommendation engines as an authority on some topic and you move up the search engine rankings or recommendation rankings.

  • Radical, divisive or clickbait content are also the ones that are most SEO friendly. They get a lot of clicks and engagement because they often induce innate tribalistic responses, or induce very engaging emotional responses like our anger, insecurity, or fear.

The kind of moderate, variety storytelling blog I want realisticwanderlust to be, will unfortunately make it very hard to discover in today’s SEO environment.


I don’t know how I’m going to pickup traffic with this blog by writing the kinds of posts I want to write, but I also refuse to write posts that are not true to what I want this blog to be, or just cater to SEO and/or recommendation algorithms.

I feel like the world needs more real content, not content that chases views, caters to SEO and recommendation algorithms via clickbait, radical, fear or insecurity based content to become more ‘popular’. It’s gradually making the world a much more divided and radical place because of how hyper plugged in we all are to the internet. But even with more moderate content out there how do we find it? How does moderate content grow on today’s internet?

Any help, recommendation or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!


Going with the theme of the pictures in this post having nothing to do with the actual post, the banner image is a poster for a coffee stop I came across walking through the city of Hakodate, Japan.

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