Since 2010, Google has been good to me. HTML was not designed with writers in mind, so after struggling with AOL and FTP space and wandering margins, Blogger was a dream come true. Using Blogger, I could write directly on to the page, publish it, and make edits with ease! And without resorting to click-bait sensationalism, I reached 200,000 views. In Philosophy, I talked about religion, science and history; in Reviews, I critiqued popular and classic literature, and in Fiction I offered up my own work. Lastly, in Naturism, I challenged attitudes regarding body shame and censorship, and I think it was that last one that got me into hot water.
It seems a time traveling/Bible thumping/1950’s-parent found my blog “objectionable,” and reported it to Google. The offense, no doubt, had something to do with “nudity,” possibly a photo from the World Naked Bike Ride, or a painting of one of my heroes. Though most schoolchildren will be exposed to Michelangelo’s David or The Birth of Venus, somehow without suffering PTSD, Google felt it necessary to protect the uber-conservative minority from stumbling upon my blog and losing their monocles, which forces me to wonder, if you’re mores date back to the 16th century, what in the world are you doing on a computer? It’s witchcraft I tell you! Witchcraft! Get back to Amish country posthaste!
But Google isn’t 100% to blame. As they’re too busy preparing for the next real world Terminator franchise, they don’t have the manpower to go all Big Brother on everybody, so they can’t know whether my blog is a My Little Pony fan site or just an ISIS Terrorist Blog (I can hear the NSA pinging me now!). And since Google justice is blind, they treat it all the same. I share a post on Facebook, and a warning gets plastered all over it, in big bold dramatic font. Type “Writer’s Disease” into a search engine, and it’s way down on page 3, accompanied by a warning that my blog will give you AIDS. When I complained about this to them, they simply said they’d investigate. Their FAQ gives no ETA, so it could be days, weeks or centuries!
Hello WordPress!
If you are new to the Writer’s Disease, let me give you the rundown: My name is Nick Alimonos and I like to write. No, scratch that, I don’t have a choice. Since I was six years of age, I’ve known that if I don’t get words on paper, my brain will swell and go pop. So I am forced to do this, just to stay alive. But when I am long dead and forgotten, I’d like to think that it somehow mattered, because story matters, because life is nothing more than the stories we tell ourselves. I like to believe that, buried beneath the everyday memes of our information-pollution age, we may yet find something of nuance and meaning. And, if that sounds too preachy for you, I also like naked chicks riding unicorns.
Welcome.
Oh, and if you are reading this on Blogger and can’t put 1 and 1 together (it’s 11): I’VE MOVED! So please visit me at writersdisease.net!
The Art of Storytelling 
Leave a Reply