Recently the New York Times had an article which hit a bit too close to home: blogs were declining in popularity. I sat there, reading up, tears welling up in my eyes at the horrible news. That draft I had been working on my blog might not be as significant anymore or remotely significant. Wondering if this was true all over, high-tailed it over to Hipster Runoff. After seeing Carles’ absolutely pathetic and sad meta-joke on the entire online hipster community ‘The Mainstreamer’ I thought they might be right.
Composing myself, I realized the New York Times hasn’t been right about a lot of things. Maybe there was something more than news compelling them to write such vicious material. The writers of the New York Times must know their days of being a newspaper are limited. Who are they to report on blogs and the state of blog affairs? Why can’t we have the President of the Blog-O-Sphere come out and reject such slander in her state of the Blog Address.
“The State of our Blog has never been stronger. We produce more Memes than any other country on Earth.”
While some people have turned exclusively to twitter and Facebook, most use them as supplements, rather than full-on platforms. In other words, you have to have tough skin for the internet. Michael McDonald, the young man they profiled in their extended piece, clearly didn’t have the guts for what blog life is all about. Rather than expand his blogging presence through dubious tweets and so on, he went all lame on it. Using the gripe of ‘not enough people visited my blog’ he closed up shop for good.
If I were this kid’s friend, I would have told him to stick with it. Blogging takes a long time; it is more of a slow burn than a flare up. Simply posting stuff up doesn’t mean you’re going to get noticed, you’ve got to be creative. Create a Facebook profile whose single purpose is trolling other sites, implanting your blog presence elsewhere. Begin to connect with other bloggers, write something people want to read. Technical blogs don’t do so hot; you have to inject some truth and understanding into there at some point. Stating ‘all the people I want to reach are on Facebook’ it is clear he wanted positive feedback rather than constructive criticism (I’ve been able to accept constructive criticism due to my arm’s length approach to this doodad).
Children 12 to 17 saw a 50% decrease in the amount of blogging. Good, what the fuck do tweens blog about? I don’t really care about how hard you have it in Middle School, in High School. I’m sorry lunch today was applesauce, lasagna, and cornbread, but just eat it. You have to go through some serious stuff, some interesting stuff before you can write turgid, long-winded posts like the ones better bloggers have.
Showing a decrease in the amount of bloggers doesn’t bother me in the least. Thinning the ranks a little bit can be a good thing. Having become familiar with other blogs, I’d say there’s always better and better stuff coming out. By staying around longer, you can ‘hone’ your ‘blogging chops’ and do a better job. Writing doesn’t come naturally to me; I had to work at this kind of work. Hopefully I’ve become a little better of a writer through various amounts of criticism.
Blogs offer a certain amount of conversation. I enjoy speaking with other bloggers. We help one another and form a community which is strong. Sure, I think the opinionated tag works for a lot of blogs, but those tend to be more political blogs, something I try to avoid on here. Besides, in case you’re more interested in the visual arts, Tumblr offers a great way of showing off your skills, probably much better than Blogspot does.
Don’t let the New York Times lord over you. Stay strong fellow writers, bloggers, Google Bombers, Flarfers, and whatever else exists exclusively on the internet that I haven’t mentioned. Together we’ll make these Chains of Love.