I blog every day, but I don’t really follow bloggers.
That probably sounds strange. It may even sound hypocritical. It is possible I just failed some kind of WordPress citizenship test and will soon receive a sternly worded email from the Department of Daily Prompt Compliance.
“Dear Blogger,
It has come to our attention that you have been blogging without properly following other bloggers. Please report immediately to the Reader tab for corrective scrolling.”
But it’s true.
I write a blog every day. I read blogs sometimes. I click around. I look at other responses to the daily prompt. I occasionally find something thoughtful, funny, honest or surprisingly well-written.
But I don’t follow bloggers the way I follow favorite bands, authors, movies, teams or restaurants.
And that is where this question loses me.
“Who is your favorite blogger to follow?” assumes I have a mental shelf labeled Favorite Bloggers, right between Favorite Rock Bands and Favorite Bourbons Under $50. It assumes I am wandering through the wilds of the internet, tracking the careers of prompt responders with the same intensity some people reserve for SEC football recruiting.
“Did you see what Brenda posted about Brussels sprouts today?”
“No, but I heard Gary has a new piece dropping on naps at 10.”
“Big week for vegetable-based self-discovery.”
That is not really how this works.
At least not for me.
I know blogs still exist because I am currently writing one. That feels like fairly strong evidence. But the idea of “following bloggers” feels like it belongs to another version of the internet — the one with blogrolls, RSS feeds, comment sections that were not entirely populated by bots, and people who said things like “web log” without immediately being asked if they needed help getting back to 2004.
Now everything is scattered. Some writers are on WordPress. Some are on Substack. Some are on Facebook. Some are on Medium. Some write newsletters. Some write captions. Some write one long sentence under a sunset picture and call it healing.
And some answer daily prompts.
Bless us all.
The daily prompt community is its own fascinating ecosystem. Every morning, WordPress tosses a question into the internet like a substitute teacher handing out a worksheet, and hundreds of us dutifully pick up our pencils.
Sometimes the questions are pretty good. Sometimes they are oddly specific. Sometimes they sound like they were written by a guidance counselor trapped in a fortune cookie factory.
And sometimes they ask something like, “Who is your favorite blogger to follow?”
That question assumes a lot. It assumes I follow bloggers. It assumes I think of them as bloggers. It assumes I have favorites. It assumes I’m keeping a leaderboard. It assumes I’m sitting here with a foam finger that says, “Go, Team Personal Reflection!”
But most of the time, I’m not following bloggers.
I’m reading posts.
There’s a difference.
A post can catch my attention without turning its author into my new internet life coach. I can enjoy one response without subscribing to a lifetime supply of that person’s thoughts about soup, childhood, traffic circles and the emotional symbolism of laundry.
This is especially true with daily prompt responses, where the quality range is wider than a Waffle House menu at 2 a.m.
Some people take the question and turn it into something. They tell a story. They make a point. They surprise you. They begin with something ordinary and somehow find a trapdoor underneath it.
Those are the good ones.
Then there are the others.
“What do you love now that you hated when you were younger?”
“Watermelon, sushi, olives and veggies.”
Well, there it is. The full arc of human transformation in six words and a side salad.
Another answer:
“Naps.”
Hard to argue with that. Naps are wonderful. But as a piece of writing, it does leave a little meat on the bone.
“Silence. Solitude. Brussels sprouts.”
Honestly, that one sounds less like a blog post and more like the title of a very intense Amish thriller.
Then there are the responses that begin with, “I’m really not sure,” and somehow never become more sure. The writer starts uncertain, wanders through three paragraphs of fog, and ends by essentially saying, “So, yeah. I don’t know.”
Thank you for taking us on that journey.
And again, I don’t mean this cruelly. Not every post needs to be a masterpiece. Sometimes a person has five minutes, a cup of coffee and a prompt. Sometimes the answer really is naps. Sometimes you used to hate olives and now you don’t. That is a legitimate development. Somewhere, a charcuterie board is proud of you.
But those posts do not usually make me think, “I must follow this blogger.”
They make me think, “That person has completed today’s assignment.”
And maybe that is the distinction.
There is a difference between answering the prompt and writing.
Answering the prompt says, “I used to hate vegetables.”
Writing says, “I used to think vegetables were punishment, but now I understand they were my mother’s quiet attempt to keep me alive.”
Answering the prompt says, “I love naps.”
Writing says, “I used to think naps were for old people, but now I understand they are one of adulthood’s few remaining legal escapes.”
Answering the prompt says, “Silence.”
Writing says, “When I was younger, silence felt empty. Now it feels like one of the rarest luxuries in a world that keeps trying to sell me noise.”
Same answers. Different effort.
That is what I’m looking for when I read.
Not perfection. Not polish so shiny you can see your reflection in it. Not someone trying to sound like the official spokesperson for Deep Thoughts Incorporated.
I’m looking for a person who does something with the question.
I’m looking for a writer who can take a boring prompt and find the hidden hinge. Someone who can start with Brussels sprouts and end somewhere I didn’t expect. Someone who can make me laugh, think, nod, argue, remember or feel slightly annoyed in a productive way.
That last one counts.
Good writing does not always comfort you. Sometimes it pokes you in the ribs. Sometimes it says, “You may want to think about this a little longer.” Sometimes it makes you realize the prompt was not really the question at all. It was just the doorknob.
That is the kind of blogger I would follow.
Not the one who merely shows up and drops three nouns on the counter like a grocery list.
“Naps. Olives. Silence.”
Thank you, Socrates.
I want the writer who notices that the question is too small and decides to build a bigger room around it.
So no, I don’t have a favorite blogger to follow.
I have a favorite kind of blogger.
The kind who writes like there is a person on the other side of the screen. The kind who knows “naps” may be the answer, but it probably should not be the whole post. The kind who can take an ordinary question and make it worth my time.
The kind who remembers that blogging, at its best, is not just typing in public.
It is thinking out loud with enough care that someone else might want to listen.
And if WordPress ever asks me to name my favorite blogger again, that’s probably still going to be my answer.
Unless someone writes the definitive Brussels sprouts essay.
Then all bets are off.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
Brilliant! Love the deadpan humour. And though I did answer the prompt as it was intended, I do agree with you. Especially with the tone of the daily prompts … they are becoming less and less likely to fit my blog ethos of keeping things fun and light, and hopefully slightly amusing.
😀👏