2025-11-18
So I've been big into trying get people to start a blog and get off social media. To this end, I offer my services to set up a website, free of charge!
By my services, I don't mean my software development skills. My goal isn't to just write you a website to your spec, and to act as some web development shop for you.
Rather, I want to guide you into web revivalism. I want to hold your hand for as deep as you want to go, in whatever direction you want to go. I want the website you have to feel like the website you built.
And one of my friends took me up on that offer! She asks for a simple website, no frills and I thought that Bear Blog might be a good fit for her.
Since I never used Bear Blog before, I figured the best way to explore it is to make a blog using it! So here it is: https://channatest.bearblog.dev/.
Baseline, it's very minimal. You can:
You can't add images or videos to your post.
You can't really do anything else but make text posts, to be honest. So nothing really all that interactive.
You can embed images / videos if you pay a monthly fee. I don't think it's worth it, but I don't begrudge him for the choice. And if you want to support the creator, I think it's fair.
Comfortable writing your posts in markdown.
Comfortable using a blog management tool. That is, you don't just click an "edit" button on your blog. It's a bit more indirect.
Overall: 3/10. I would expect someone my age to not have any trouble, if they are willing to be guided / be okay feeling lost momentarily.
Note: If you want to edit the themes (instead of just choosing between the existing themes), that requires more technical ability. But there really are a lot of themes!