Look, I blogged about blogging
In the comments of the last two posts, Andie and Natasha both asked that I explain what I mean about blogging being dead, or how I feel blogging is now.
To me, blogs used to feel like short stories, or diaries. Now they feel more like magazines. Not that I don’t like magazines, but not when I’m in the mood for a short story. The magazination of a lot of blogs I used to read and love sort of bummed me out, and made me lose interest in sharing my thoughts online. (A lot of that was really me choosing to use my time differently, though.)
From what I do see now and then on blogs, it feels like lots of people want to be Oprah now. I’m not interested in everyone being an expert or guru; I just liked the storytelling.
Some people have managed to make their blogs look like pretty magazines but still kept the same voice and tone and personal sharing level. (Holly is a good example of that. Holly is like The New Yorker to me in that sometimes I find myself reading things I wouldn’t think would interest me, but they do because of her writing style.) That impresses me, because it’s rare, keeping that balance. I mean, if I started blogging regularly again, I don’t know if I could maintain the old level of sharing, and my site would still be black and red and ugly.
Don’t get me wrong: I have no issue with people making money from their blogging. It’s not my thing, but if it’s yours, go for it and more power to you. But a lot of times that changes the tone of the site, and then it becomes less a place where you write about your fears or a funny thing that happened to you over the weekend, and becomes more a place where you tell me your favorite kind of jeans and where I can buy them and here’s a code to get 20% off. If that came up in a personal conversation between us, awesome. I mean, am I not human? I buy jeans. I like codes. I read magazines. I want to know where you found that cool thing. But in my free time, when I’m on the internet seeking out the smart funny writers I like, I’m much more interested in hearing the funny story from your weekend.
(I also think being a blogger and being a writer are two very different things, and being one doesn't automatically make you the other, but I’ll save that for another day. I don’t currently call myself a writer, because I am not currently writing. I also can’t really call myself a blogger at the moment either.)
I do have to say though, just in the past two weeks, more than a few old school bloggers I used to love to read have started blogging again. Is there something in the water? I don’t know, but this makes me happy. Maybe I’ll get back into it too. I am enjoying this whole you ask a question in the comments and I write a post answering it thing we’ve been doing. It’s like a prompt from a creative writing class, just a good way to get back into the habit.