Three Years Older
Three years ago, on the 17th of April 2016, I launched this blog. In true me style, my first blog posts were about feminism, and how hard being a teenager is. Fifteen-year-old Tirion thought she’d run the blog for a bit and probably forget about it, but three years later, I’m so glad I stuck with it.
I knew when I was about fourteen that I wanted to explore journalism as a career. But trying to be a journalist when you’re fourteen and fifteen is hard, especially when you’re too shy to even put your hand up to ask to go to the toilet. I would submit work to The Guardian and search for work experience that would satisfy my craving to write what I wanted to write. But most companies like the BBC don’t let you apply for work experience until you’re eighteen. Public speaking and BBC School News Report were great, but they were seasonal.
I remember sitting in the back of the car and reading some magazine when I came across a piece about Tavi Gevinson, the Editor of Rookie (which has since released its final copy). She’s only a few years older than I am, but she’d started a blog before she was able to expand Rookie into this incredible magazine for teenagers that Teen Vogue could only dream to be. My brother told me that he’d heard of her, and that she was eleven when she’d started her own blog. I didn’t really know what a blog was, but upon further exploration, I realised that it was what I wanted. Within a few weeks, just shy of turning sixteen, I finally launched my blog after much deliberation.
My blog gave me a chance to explore my beliefs and expand upon them. These days it’s common to read a post about something I’ve been outraged by in the news, as opposed to complaining about not being able to wear a coat in school.
I’ve grown up over the past three years, and I feel my blog is a reflection of that. A lot of things have happened in the past three years since I started my blog. I was following the news to an extent, but I wasn’t educating myself enough on the events which occurred on our newsfeeds. I was being passive, taking in the information but never really acknowledging its impact. Until I did. I used my blog as a way of understanding my own viewpoint, and further understood that maybe I could tell the story in a way which made more sense to more people.
By continuing to write blog posts over the past three years, I’ve been able to improve my writing. I’ve learnt my writing style, and I think a little bit of me has stopped caring what a lot of people think, too. My blog posts aren’t supposed to be substitutes for newspaper articles, as there’s almost always a bias I don’t pretend to hide. But it doesn’t mean running a blog hasn’t helped to improve my writing skills in a journalistic capacity.
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, I would always say do it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, if you feel passionately enough about something, do it. My blog has helped me a lot, in all seriousness. Because I’ve practiced my written skills, I’ve since been Editor of my secondary school’s newspaper; started writing monthly articles for Wenvoe What’s On; gained work experience (and been published) in Buzz Magazine; been published on S4C’s Hacio website; gained a place at Cardiff University’s school of Journalism and been published in the University’s newspaper, Gair Rhydd. Most importantly to me, it’s given me more confidence to speak out about issues I care about. Although I’m always careful and aware of others’ views, I’m more open about my beliefs now and I know that they deserve to have a platform. It’s a platform I made myself, but sometimes if you want something done you’ve got to do it yourself.
It’s been three years, and although the blog posts are less often (guys, University’s actually a lot of work) I still love writing them. I’ve received some amazing feedback over the past three years, and it’s always nice because it means I’ve reached someone.
I didn’t start a blog to be rich and famous, I started it for me. And boy how I’ve changed since I started it. But that’s okay. It’s good.
The past three years have been a whirlwind but it’s been brilliant. I learned some new, fancy words (could you tell?) but I also learned more about me. I’ve got a lot more fire in me than I thought I had when I was fifteen. I mean, it’s probably always been there, I just never let it out.
Thank you for reading my blog. Even if you thought what I’d said was rubbish, thank you for taking the time to read a post. If you’ve sent me a message about one of my posts, know how much that truly does mean to me. Thank you for setting aside a few minutes of your day to read even a few sentences of a post. Thank you for sticking with me since I was fifteen. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tirion Davies
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