Brief for specific definitions of the word I suppose. Blog posts, even long blog posts, are brief in relation to The Stand or the works of Robert Jordan. The problem here is that I wrote that title at the top of an empty blog post, so I cannot really tell how deep this is going to get. But I am going there.
Blaugust 2026
And I want to go there because Blaugust has been a thing for a baker’s dozen years, with 2020 getting a double dose… though we also skipped a year… and I want to chart out how things went. It is a thing I do sometimes. That and summer re-run posts. This is not a summer re-run post.
Also, we’re halfway through Blaugust 2026 and I don’t feel like I’ve been paying much attention to it. I seem to have enough to write about most days without feeling the need to force things.
The tale will be in brief based on what I remember. But I will also link out to all of my Blaugust posts for each year. I tend to link out all over in those, so if you want to root out details they are probably linked somewhere in there.
So let’s go.
2014 – Blaugust BeginsAs something of vaguely associated extension of the Newbie Blogger Initiative… it isn’t mentioned at all but the event was called the “Blaugust Initiative” in the first post so maybe… Belghast decided to throw out the idea of having an addition event that had people post every day, in part because he himself was in the midst of a self-imposed experiment of posting every day so why not share the pain?
Blaugust of 2014
The origin story is… well… this as summed up in the Gospel of Blaugust:
Thanks to cramming together of blog and august, Blaugust was born, and the idea is to take the challenge during the month of August to write a new post every day.
This was also in the Anook era of Blaugust, where we tried using that attempt to make another gamer social site. We had 51 blogs entered, each of which I recorded in my review post.
My 2014 related posts:
- Jul 31 – Hot Blaugust Nights
- Aug 22 – Savior of Blaugust – That Video Game Questionnaire Thing
- Sep 1 – Blaugust in Review
The first year worked out so well that Belghast decided to give it another run.
Blaugust of 2015
Again, this was run after the May Newbie Blogger Initiative event and there was considerable overlap between the two event, at least in the case of the regulars who all show up to these sorts of things. We continued on using Anook as the focal point of the event and most people logged in there and posted links to post.
We had 71 sites involved with the event, which I again recorded in my review post.
My 2015 related posts:
- Aug 1 – It is Blaugust and You Are Already Late!
- Aug 31 – Blaugust in Review
After two years of something of a hardcore event, pushing people to post every day and having some parameters around what even counts as a post, Bel came back with the more casual version of the event.
Blaugust of 2016
I mean, casual if you wanted it to be so. He, and many of the usual suspects went on posting every single day like maniacs, but you were not excluded if you didn’t want to keep up that sort of pace. That led to people going at their own pace. We had 59 participants.
While I am listed as doing weekday posts, I posted 36 times that August, so clearly made the daily post metric.
My 2015 related posts:
- Aug 3 – Blaugust is Upon Us
- Aug 31 – August 2016 in Review
There was no official Blaugust for 2017. I keep forgetting about this… though anything pre-2020 is the “before times” when everything was different. This was likely due to the NBI not being run, and they were somewhat run as a pair.
That said, there were a few of us who did an unofficial Blaugust and posted for all thirty-one days, something I noted in passing in my month in review for that August.
2018 – Blaugust RebornAfter a lapse Blaugust was back in part to get people jazzed about blogging, which by that point had long been seen as a dead end in the age of Facebook and Twitter.
Blaugust of 2018
For the first time the Newbie Blogger Initiative is mentioned in the announcement post as something that helped bring together the local bloggers into a group that would join in on such events. While social media was around, we were still congregating on Anook.
- 90 blogs signed up in Blaugust Reborn 2018
- 83 bloggers made at least one post during the month
- We added 1404 more than new blog posts to the community as a result of Blaugust Reborn
- This equated to an average of 45 new blog posts per day
- 26 Bloggers had 31 or more posts
My 2018 posts:
- Jul 23 – A Blaugust to Revive Blogging
- Aug 1 – It Is Blaugust and What Should I Even Write About?
- Aug 11 – Blaugust and Consolidating Your Blog Reading
- Aug 18 – Blaugust and Making Comments on Comments
- Aug 25 – Blaugust and Editorial Policy
- Sep 3 – The Labors of Blaugust
The last Blaugust of the “before times” for many of us, where the world is divided into before Covid and after. For me that meant going to the office every day, something I haven’t done since March 17, 2020.
Blaugust of 2019
There was a push to get the event beyond video game blogs… though I kind of miss when that was the case. But there aren’t so many of us I guess. It also marked the start of the Discord server to coordinate the event and the naming of mentors, several of whom managed to get so named by the simple virtue of having been around since the beginning. Any mentoring I have done was purely accidental I am sure. The following stats were recorded for the event:
- 1305 posts were made by Blagust 2019 Participants
- 66 Individuals Participated
- 11 Newbie Bloggers Participated
- 55 out of 66 made at least 5 posts qualifying for Bronze
- 36 made at least 15 posts qualifying for Silver
- 31 made at least 25 posts qualifying for Gold
- 27 made 31 or more posts during the month of August qualifying for Rainbow
Also, we had a subreddit for the event. I swear we did, it is still there. It never really took off.
My 2019 posts:
- Jul 17 – Blaugust 2019 is Coming
- Aug 1 – Blaugust Arrives and You Call This Prep?
- Aug 8 – Blaugust and What the Hell to Write About
- Aug 23 – Blaugust and Burning Things Down
- Aug 29 – Blaugust and Keeping the Words Flowing to the Site
- Aug 31 – My Gamer Motivation Profile Once Again
- Sep 7 – The Labors of Blaugust 2019
Then there was Covid and the March that seemed to last forever. Most of us were only at home starting at the mid-point of the month, but it felt like a year because we were all suddenly yoinked out of our regular routines and forced to stay home and watch Tiger King on Netflix.
It was dire.
The Blapril commeth
We were still on Discord and had an event hash tag for social media. Did we have that before Blapril? I don’t remember and am too lazy to figure it out. (Okay, we had it in 2019 as well. Still, Blapril was different.)
My 2020 posts:
- Mar 27 – Blapril is a Promise that Blaugust is Bound to Keep
- Apr 2 – Blapril Prep Week is Almost Over
- Apr 10 – Blapril and Figuring Out What to Write
- Apr 18 – Road Trip with Mojo Nixon
- Apr 25 – To the Series Born
- Apr 28 – Blapril and Staying Motivated
- May 2 – My Top Five Most Viewed Posts
- May 7 – A Flawed Profile in Gamer Motivation
- May 9 – My Top Five Most Viewed Posts Year by Year
- May 15 – The Labors of Blapril
Wait, we already had Blaugust in April, what were we supposed to due in August when people were starting to get sick of this whole Covid thing but the grocery store still had signs up all over the store with arrows and distance rules like it was a driver training school? How about Promptapalooza?
August means some sort of Blaugust
We were going to get together and chain together 31 days of blog posts, with everybody having a date and a prompt assigned to throw in their entry, and you had to link back to previous posts in the chain. I got day five, so was done pretty quick.
My 2020 prompt posts:
- Aug 1 – Blaugust Promptapalooza Arrives
- Aug 5 – Promptapalooza and a Quote of the Day
- Aug 28 – Promptapalooza and Writing a Blog Post
It was 2021 and we had a Covid vaccine and vaccine cards and I had to fill out a form and provide proof of vaccination to visit my mom, who lived in Hawaii at the time.
Blaugust of 2021
We believed we were returning to normalcy… but there was no going back. Still, we had a good turnout and the following stats were recorded:
- 981 posts were made by Blaugust 2021 Participants
- 45 Individuals Participated in the event and made at least one post
- 2 Newbie Bloggers Participated and both made 31 posts
- 40 out of the 45 participating made at least 5 posts qualifying for Bronze
- 31 out of the 45 participating made at least 15 posts qualifying for Silver
- 22 out of the 45 participating made at least 25 posts qualifying for Gold
- 20 blogers made at least 31 posts qualifying for Rainbow Diamond
My 2021 posts:
- Jul 17 – The Return of Blaugust 2021
- Aug 1 – Welcome to Blaugust 2021
- Aug 8 – One Blog or Multiple?
- Aug 24 – On Blogging, Motivation, and Passion
- Sep 3 – The Labors of Blaugust 2021
I have no idea why the Stranger Things font style was chosen. That was a thing back in 2016. But I guess it worked.
Blaugust time is coming to town…
Still, people showed up and the numbers ended up looking like this:
- 1333 posts were made by Blaugust 2022 Participants.
- 67 blogs signed up and made at least one post during the month.
- 24 blogs participated in Blaugust for the very first time.
- Collectively our “Newbies” made a total of 376 posts.
- 60 out of the 67 participating blogs made at least 5 posts qualifying for Bronze.
- 42 out of the 67 participating blogs made at least 15 posts qualifying for Silver.
- 30 out of the 67 participating blogs made at least 25 posts qualifying for Gold.
- 26 out of the 67 participating blogs made at least 31 posts qualifying for Rainbow Diamond
My posts for 2022:
- Jul 25 – Blaugust 2022 Commences in One Week
- Aug 1 – Blaugust Begins 2022
- Aug 8 – Blaugust and Introductions
- Aug 16 – Blaugust and What is Content Anyway?
- Aug 22 – Staying Motivated Going into Blaugust Week Four
- Aug 29 – Blaugust and What to do with a Popular Post
- Sep 3 – The Labors of Blaugust 2022
We arrive at the 10th year since the start of the event, but not the 10th Blaugust? I mean we skipped a year and we had Blapril and whatever.
Blaugust – 2023 Edition
Still, we had people turn out and the stats were:
- 104 Blogs Signed Up for Blaugust.
- Of those Blogs 100 Made at least one post during the month of August.
- We had 56 folks sign up for Blaugust who had never participated before.
- During this past month, Blaugust Participants created 1459 Content Posts.
- Club of Honor – Made at least one post during the event: 25 blogs
- Bronze Club – Made at least five posts: 37 blogs
- Silver Club – Made at least fifteen posts: 7 blogs
- Gold Club – Made at least twenty-five posts: 2 blogs
- Rainbow-Diamond Club – Made at least thirty one posts: 29 blogs
And Bel made a 10th anniversary banner at the end.
The Ten Events of Blaugust so far
My 2023 posts:
- Jul 14 – Blaugust Returns for 2023 Celebrating 10 Years of the Event
- Jul 27 – Blaugust 2023 is Right Around the Corner
- Aug 1 – Welcome to Blaugust 2023
- Aug 3 – Looking Back at Blaugust 2014
- Aug 7 – Blaugust 2023 Hits the 100 Blog Mark
- Aug 8 – The Many Ways to Read This Blog During Blaugust
- Aug 28 – In the Final Stretch of Blaugust 2023
- Sep 2 – The Labors of Blaugust 2023
And the Blaugust train just kept going.
Blaugust – 2024 Edition
We had our first bit of controversy when two blogs showed up posting AI written content. This made people mad, even if one of them seemed to be making fun of AI. I don’t know.
The basic numbers for the event were:
- 116 Blogs Signed Up for Blaugust.
- Of Those Blogs 113 Made at least one blog post during the month of August.
- We had 67 blogs sign up that had never participated before in a Blaugust Event.
- During the past month, Blaugust Participants created 1978 Content Posts.
My posts for 2024:
- Jul 22 – The Herald of Blaugust 2024 has Appeared
- Aug 1 – Welcome to Blaugust 2024!
- Aug 6 – Blaugust 2024 – Welcome to TAGN or What’s in a Name?
- Aug 17 – Blaugust and Wondering If Blogging is Dead?
- Aug 23 – Blaugust and Motivation – How The Sausage is Made at TAGN
- Aug 29 – Blaugust – Who Even Reads This Stuff?
- Sep 3 – The Labors of Blaugust 2024
Life had hit Belgahst pretty hard in 2025 with the passing of his wife on July 2nd, a tragedy I am not sure how one even begins to cope with. I can’t even directly approach the idea of my wife passing without my eyes welling up in tears.
Blaugust of 2025
The Blaugust community stepped up to keep Bel’s event going, with Krikket of Nerd Girl Thoughts taking on the role of coordinating the event.
Krikket recorded the stats for the event on her site, which you can find here. We had 162 blogs sign up, making it a top year for the event.
My 2025 posts:
- Jul 25 – The Herald of Blaugust 2025
- Jul 29 – Blaugust 2025 is Nearly Here!
- Aug 1 – Welcome to Blaugust! Oh No! Now What?
- Aug 5 – Running Blaugust on a Second Blog
- Aug 8 – It is Still Blaugust and Who Am I Even?
- Aug 13 – Blaugust and How to Keep Me from Commenting on Your Blog
- Aug 16 – Blaugust 2025 at the Halfway Mark
- Aug 27 – Blaugust Motivation – Where Do All These Words Come From?
- Aug 29 – The Demise of General Media – Reviving a Post Draft from 2009
All of that brings us to this year when we have come together for another event, both to keep the event alive and to remember Belghast, who passed away on the anniversary of his wife’s death. In the interim he had been diagnosed with cancer and had been undergoing treatment, posting his way through his experience on his blog and still playing video games, we he passed.
And brings me to the end of the history of the event. It will likely carry on, and as it does some of us will remember Bel for the work he put in to build this community and keep it going.