5 MINUTE MOVIE GUY

Again I rise – from the ashes of a website long forgotten, from an empty chamber across the endlessly flowing current of the Web, from an ancient relic of what once was but has ceased to be. What has befallen this dilapidated place? Negligence. Despair. But most of all… disdain.

The truth is I don’t like my WordPress website. Honestly, I don’t think I ever have. I’ve never liked the look of it, I’ve never liked the feel of it, and I’ve just never felt comfortable with it. I find it overwhelming, cumbersome, and difficult to manage.

When I first transitioned to WordPress from Weebly, I settled. I couldn’t find any available site themes that matched my vision, so I ended up choosing one that was visually dull but functionally sufficient. I intended to fix it up once I became more familiar with the website builder, but I was never quite able to make it look how I desired. Suddenly my website was a place I was no longer proud of. It looked generic and dull.

Transferring all of my old content from my first site to the next felt like a chore, but a necessary one. Still, I pressed on. After all, there were reasons why I made the jump to WordPress, and I wanted to make it work.

Most of my fellow movie friends used WordPress, and that in itself has its perks. It makes it easier to get interactions on my posts and actually creates a strong sense of community. Combine that with the ever-handy WordPress Reader feed and anyone who follows me can have instant access to my content, and me to theirs. It’s my favorite feature that WordPress offers, and also one that I don’t believe any other web-builder has.

While I was at Weebly, I felt like I was all alone on an island apart from everyone else. Nothing I posted was seen unless I first manually plugged it on social media, or unless they happened to be browsing my website on their own accord. The sense of being a part of a greater whole is what drove me here. However the difficulty and unappealing design of WordPress only served to push me away. On WordPress, my website no longer felt like my own.

I missed Weebly’s simple-to-use click-and-drag style of formatting. It provided me with instant feedback and flexibility, allowing me to easily adjust and arrange my content in a way that was presentable and fit my needs. Though it wasn’t without its own limitations and frustrations either. Even with self-made templates, manually recreating each new page was tedious and time-consuming. Also I had to learn to work with what tools I had available to me, as well as their own shortcomings.

Soon enough, I drifted away from it all. My website became a place of shame instead of accomplishment. Beyond the text, it no longer adequately represented me. Before I ever even finished manually transferring over my content, I gave up on it and walked away.

Eventually I came back, as I always seem to do. I still have big dreams for my website, and my dissatisfaction and unsatiated appetite always find a way to lure me back in. Upon my return, fueled by my excitement after watching Wonder Woman, I decided it was time to give WordPress another go. I found a new theme more to my liking (which is still currently in use), I finished bringing over my old reviews, and I found myself reinvigorated.

I was pushing out content at a steadier pace than I ever had. Things were clicking. Juices were flowing. I was making my comeback! At long last! 5 Minute Movie Guy had returned. Then, just a few months later, my mom died, and I went away again.

Her death happened quickly and unexpectedly. I don’t talk much about myself or my personal life here, but I spent the last 10 years of my mom’s life taking care of her. Her death left an immeasurable impact on me. One that I’ve always kept close to the chest. As a matter of fact, I’ve never picked my website back up since. This will be my first attempt.

Immediately I feel discouraged again by WordPress, and feel like I need to learn it all over again. This brought me back to the realization that I never liked it much to begin with. Maybe I’m too fussy about it, but maybe it’s time again for another change of venue. Maybe I need to begin my next chapter of 5 Minute Movie Guy not with a new hope, but with a new home.

*** P.S. Even just trying to get this blog posted through WordPress has been a royal pain. I’m experiencing all kinds of formatting issues, such as inconsistent spacing, ridiculously small caption sizes, inability to justify text with the new block editor, etc. All the more reasons why maybe I really should find a better place to post…

5 Minute Movie Guy
8.17.19