Did Facebook kill Witchvox?

I did not have the internet at home and I did not join Facebook until 2007. I published my first blog post in March of 2011 and I did not have a photographic portfolio on Deviant Art until 2012. I am something of a late comer to the modern wonder that is the world wide web and to quote Homesteading Off The Grid (YouTube 2019); "Everyone is an expert on Social Media." We must all have noticed that.

In late 2019 it was announced that the pioneering Pagan website Witchvox would close at the end of the year and the announcement caused much comment on various websites since. Witchvox was founded in 1997 and by lasting twenty two years, it clearly cannot be dismissed easily. It made a significant impact upon the Pagan and Witchcraft community and many are saddened by its closure.

I am however, rather detached from this expression of sadness. Although I did have a Witchvox account, it was little used. I can't remember when I joined Witchvox but it was after I joined Facebook. I used the site to advertise the moots I hosted and the occasional charity picnic. I had a profile and a separate profile for the Hearth of the Turning Wheel. The use I had for Witchvox was identical to that of Facebook and it was soon apparent that any responses I received; came primarily via Facebook and not Witchvox.

In the decade (more or less) that I had an account, I received a small number of emails. Some were from genuine seekers and some from the media. They were few in number. I never once published an article on Witchvox and rarely if ever, accessed those available. Witchvox was for me an adjunct, an appendage and was never my primary organ of communication.

For others of my acquaintance however, Witchvox represented their first foray onto the Pagan based Internet. In the first decade of this century, Witchvox was the way that many found like minded souls. Members could share news of festivals, moots, lectures and of course, all had access to that free resource of study material.

What changed? Am I in my behaviour and my limited use of the site, indicative of how Witchvox ceased to be at the centre of the Pagan online community? Can my use of Witchvox or lack of use, be used as a marker to show how Facebook took over the role it once had? Perhaps and perhaps not.

It is too easy today to blame everything on social media in general or on Facebook specifically. Although in my own personal opinion, I do believe that Facebook is an important contributory factor but it is not solely responsible for the demise of Witchvox. The Internet has changed even in the short time that I have had access to it but it has most definitely changed. Facebook is not the only website, platform or whatever (I apologise but I am ignorant of the correct Internet jargon) to exist. Today we have Instagram, Whatsapp, Wordpress, Tumblr, Google-blogspot and a plethora of other sites that can be and are used, to share the same information that Witchvox once did.

Although Witchvox was a specialist site, these newer applications, platforms and media that have come into being, some specialist but most generalist; illustrate a change in social use of the web. What we are witnessing is the ongoing evolution of the World Wide Web. The websites and platforms that survive will; like species in the real world, be those that can adapt to their environment. Witchvox has become extinct like many before, because the Internet environment has changed and other, newer sites have evolved. Nothing is static. Witchvox was a pioneer and perhaps a victim of its own success, in that others learnt and then 'evolved' from it.