Why am I so obsessed with myself?

~ Never Not Reading

A Blogging Conundrum

I don’t know if this is a thing that other people do or not, but I find myself doing it ALL THE TIME. Whether on my blog, or my Instagram, even on Twitter back when I was part of that mess, I often find myself scrolling through my old posts.

Instagram is the easiest example because I end up doing it the most frequently. What happens is I go to my profile to make sure I like the way my feed looks, or what kind of picture I haven’t done in a while, or to check and see if I did x-book last year or not. Then I’ll think, “man, I like the way my Instagram looks” and start scrolling. The next thing I know it’s been thirty minutes and I’m looking at pictures I took three years ago.

I do this on my blog sometimes too. I’ll go and re-read an old review or post to try and remember what I said, and soon I find myself scrolling through my feed reading (and laughing at) half of my posts. I must say, I find myself terribly funny.

Why am I so obsessed with myself?

Seriously, I never do this with other people’s feeds, only my own. Is this normal, or am I a total narcissist?

It doesn’t feel narcissistic when I’m doing it. It feels nostalgic, like reading your old journal. Which, for the record, is highly entertaining, I definitely recommend. The older the journal the cringier I mean better. Reading old posts or looking at old pictures reminds me of where I was at that time and how far I’ve come since then. It reminds me of why I liked or didn’t like a book that I might not remember that well anymore.

What do you think, is spending 45 minutes re-reading my old posts normal or does it make me completely full of myself? Do you read your old posts or scroll through your old Insta photos? Let me know in the comments.

Seriously, let me know. I have to know I’m not alone or I might die of embarrassment…

46 thoughts on “Why am I so obsessed with myself?”

  3. It doesn’t make you full of yourself. It just makes you happy with your work. I, on the other hand, never reread or look at old stuff unless it’s on of those Facebook on this day sort of things….I don’t know what that says about me

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  7. I for the matter of fact hate my first posts…they are just so cringe worthy…. but I do like scrolling through my old posts ….I just see how much I have improved…..and I agree it is nostalgic….even though it has been only 2 months since my last post

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  9. I also look at older post, not on blog unless I want to read a review of series i’m continuing after long time and I forgot what was in previous books, but on Instagram. I like seeing how I was taking pictures and what picture I took so and so years ago. I agree it’s nostalgic to get back to old posts and our blog is kind of online book journal available publicly.

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    1. I have often thought of social media as an online journal. In fact, I remember on my first social media platform (Xenga, yikes!) printing out my posts, gluing them in a notebook, and then illustrating them with magazine cutouts or marker. I wonder if I still have that journal?

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  10. I do this on Instagram too (which is weird because I am fairly new to it). I will never reread my first blog posts, that’s for sure, because it would be too cringy but oh well I guess we all have to start somewhere. This post was so fun to read!

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  12. Don’t worry, I do this too.

    I think it’s part of the creative process to look back over what you did. When I do a piece of visual art, for example, the final step in the process is me just staring at it. It’s something your brain needs to do. And as a writer, after I schedule a blog post I usually go back several times and read it in preview. It’s helped me catch some errors and tweak some turns of phrase.

    Maybe you are self-absorbed — we all are — but not because of this.

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  13. I think it’s normal. I scroll through our blog all the time to see if the content looks balanced or how it might appear to someone new to our blog. Sometimes it’s funny like, “Huh, if they randomly stumbled upon our latest five posts, it would look like we’re really into…something we’re not usually posting about at all!” I also go back and reread my old writing to see how it sounds, if the argument seems well structured, and so on. Sometimes I end up thinking, “Wow, that’s actually really good.” I used to think this was maybe a bit egotistical, but I’ve come to believe that there’s nothing wrong with recognizing when you’ve done good work.

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    1. Most of the time I’m reading it so I can remember what specifically I said/thought. A lot of times I’m surprised to find that I don’t agree with myself anymore, or that my post makes me re-agree with myself when maybe I had a different idea now.

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  14. I think rereading old content is fairly normal! I easily get sucked in to reading an old review when I go back to look up one specific point on why I liked/disliked a book. I definitely cringe if it’s old enough, but it feels weirdly comforting to follow an old brainwave too.

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    1. A lot of people are saying that they find their old writing cringe-worthy. I must be in the minority because I don’t. Unless I had an opinion I’ve grown out of, which is not often the case but has definitely happened.

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      1. Ah, you’re lucky! For me it’s not so much about having different opinions as that my style of writing has changed (for the better, I hope!). I’ve definitely learned a lot about reviewing and writing in general through practice, so looking back I can see where I struggled to articulate myself and was just less mature/informed in general. I am a perpetual editor- I cannot look back at old writing without constantly comparing to how I would do it differently today, which is perhaps not always a healthy thing to focus on.

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          1. Generally I’m happy to see how much I’ve improved, but to be happy with your writing all along is definitely a good situation! 🙂

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  16. I have definitely gone back to check an old post before then looked up an hour later and realised I’ve just been reading my own blog 😂

    I forget what I’ve done so quickly that I can just scroll back and be surprised at posts I’ve done like “wow, that was a really cool idea!” 😅 Luckily I don’t actually find my old posts too embarrassing! So don’t worry, you definitely aren’t alone 😋

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  20. TOTALLY normal!! I sometimes reread old reviews and think, ‘huh… I hated that book after a few months of really thinking about it’ and then I start to rewrite posts… that’s dangerous territory. I think my review for Darkdawn went from 4 stars to 1 star!!

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    1. lol oh dear! I never re-write my old reviews because I know I won’t remember well enough. There are a couple that I know I said some problematic things in that I should probably go change, but ultimately I decided nobody is really going back to read them so…

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