Blog Overload
As the few people who read this blog know (or those who stumbled upon it and are able to do simple arithmetic based on the dates of entries), I have not been doing a very good job of keeping this blog up. August was a spectacularly busy month for me work-wise, and I actually took a week off (mostly) for vacation. However, my lack of posting has more to do with a general questioning of the purpose of this blog as opposed to a lack of time -- I still seem to watch a fair amount of television.
I guess the real issue has been that there are so many damned blogs out there, it is difficult to put forth an original thought. I am not a journalist by trade, so my work and this blog do not dovetail. Frankly, if I wrote about what I did for a living, I'd have even fewer people reading this than before (if that is possible).
I just wonder (like Andy Sullivan, formerly of Steeplejack -- a great alt-country band from Minneapolis in the mid-90s) if bloggers are a bunch of people who like to read their own words as much as they enjoy the sound of their own voices (I am nothing if not self-aware). I read other blogs from time to time, and the majority of them have an "about me" link that explains that the blog was started because the blogger, irrespective of political affiliation, was "tired of yelling at the TV news." If not that, bloggers tend to tell you what they had for lunch, how much they hate their bosses, etc. Thus, it seems like most of the blogosphere is just the written equivalent of (1) those folks on the bus or in a coffee shop who are furiously writing in their journals, (2) that crazy uncle who will not shut up about what he feels the Supreme Court really should be doing, or (3) asshole partisan talking heads who debate unimportant minutiae that is forgotten the minute another subject is discussed. Why do any of us care?
Do I really need Instapundit to provide a one-word grunt that links to an actual piece of writing? (Here is a very funny blog entry on his lack of actual commentary, proving that all blogs are not useless.) Is it somehow more creative if you cut and paste someone else's document to your blog? Do I care that 45 people can link me to the same damned photo and then make the same damned comment (and then blogroll each other to drive up their traffic)? How many times can I read that liberals are spineless or that Bush is a moron?
Thus, I try to write when I actually have something to say, rather than when I feel the need to say something (something my friend Steve Powers has been trying to instill -- inside one for you Powie -- in me for the better part of 15 years). I really appreciate that some folks actually do visit this blog, and I think that is the very purpose of this blog, as well as most others -- validation. I guess I want to ensure that there is something different, and that it is not one of 500 others. I shall do my best to do that in the future.
I guess the real issue has been that there are so many damned blogs out there, it is difficult to put forth an original thought. I am not a journalist by trade, so my work and this blog do not dovetail. Frankly, if I wrote about what I did for a living, I'd have even fewer people reading this than before (if that is possible).
I just wonder (like Andy Sullivan, formerly of Steeplejack -- a great alt-country band from Minneapolis in the mid-90s) if bloggers are a bunch of people who like to read their own words as much as they enjoy the sound of their own voices (I am nothing if not self-aware). I read other blogs from time to time, and the majority of them have an "about me" link that explains that the blog was started because the blogger, irrespective of political affiliation, was "tired of yelling at the TV news." If not that, bloggers tend to tell you what they had for lunch, how much they hate their bosses, etc. Thus, it seems like most of the blogosphere is just the written equivalent of (1) those folks on the bus or in a coffee shop who are furiously writing in their journals, (2) that crazy uncle who will not shut up about what he feels the Supreme Court really should be doing, or (3) asshole partisan talking heads who debate unimportant minutiae that is forgotten the minute another subject is discussed. Why do any of us care?
Do I really need Instapundit to provide a one-word grunt that links to an actual piece of writing? (Here is a very funny blog entry on his lack of actual commentary, proving that all blogs are not useless.) Is it somehow more creative if you cut and paste someone else's document to your blog? Do I care that 45 people can link me to the same damned photo and then make the same damned comment (and then blogroll each other to drive up their traffic)? How many times can I read that liberals are spineless or that Bush is a moron?
Thus, I try to write when I actually have something to say, rather than when I feel the need to say something (something my friend Steve Powers has been trying to instill -- inside one for you Powie -- in me for the better part of 15 years). I really appreciate that some folks actually do visit this blog, and I think that is the very purpose of this blog, as well as most others -- validation. I guess I want to ensure that there is something different, and that it is not one of 500 others. I shall do my best to do that in the future.
posted by CNB at 2:24 PM
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