A friend of mine, in a recent post, was lamenting the fact that nobody seems to be writing up any posts these days. Like maybe we’ve all gone into hibernation or something, disappearing into the woodwork from whence we came. In short, where the hell is everybody?
Has everyone said everything there is to say? Is everyone too wrapped up in trying to stay alive during ‘our current financial blip’? Or have people just gotten bored with the whole business?
Or maybe all of the above?
Hell, you got me. I do sympathize with him or maybe empathise is a more appropriate word with the possible exception that he’s still writing just about everyday whereas I seem to be sitting here stuck in the proverbial rut. But, then again, I always seem to be stuck in a proverbial rut.
Aside from that I can definitely see where he’s coming from. The world we started blogging in 3 and some odd years ago is not the same world that we’re still stubbornly blogging away in now. Back when we started this adventure in blunderland bloggerland, Facebook was just peeking out of dorm windows and considering the prospects of moving off campus and Twitter was still a twinkle in Odeo’s eyes.
Now it’s all about tweets and twerps and live news feeds and how many times you can change your Facebook avatar in the space of 3 days. Is it just the furtherization (if that’s not a word, it should be) of the “Instant Gratification” mentality that’s over swept the globe like some modern day version of a mental black plague that makes the old fashioned blog too slow to bother with while the authors just wallow around in the muck of has-been-a-lity?
Or are we just burned out?
Could it be that it takes a rare individual to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous online instantaneous sociality while the rest of us get left on the battlefield of yesterday’s comment section? Lost in blogging purgatory, ever staring into the blank field of a “New post” page while the mind reels in the throes of bloggish apathy?
Oh, good grief, did I really that?
Okay, so who knows? Perhaps it’s just the calm before the next blogging storm yet to come. All I know is that it’s late and I haven’t had my cup of tea yet so I’ll see you all tomorrow. That is if I think of anything to say?
I fear you may be right to an extent about Twitter. I could never see the attraction of it myself. Imagine if Shakespeare had decided that scribbling the odd one liner on a toilet wall was better than writing?
Blooging does seem to be going through some kind of metamorphosis though – whether for better or worse? It’s up to us Old Guards to keep the flag flying!
Grandad´s last blog ..Where is everyone?
The newer microblogging and social networking fads do undercut traditional blogging to a degree. If nothing else, the informality and rapidity with which you can chuck stuff out on Facebook or Twitter may make it easy for those options to steal a blogger’s time away from more traditional, formal, or lengthy writings.
But the thing I like about blogs and blogging is the permanence. Ever try to go back and find an old Twitter post? Next to impossible. I use my blog for a multitude of purposes, one of them being a brain dump – a place to stick things I may need to refer back to much later. Social networking sites are especially poor at this.
Anyway, we all go through slumps and dry spells. Blogging for us mere mortals can be very cyclical – I get into weeks-long ruts where nothing is happening, then suddenly, half a dozen posts flood my brain.
And more often than not, blog ideas languish on my mental back-burner far longer than they should just due to time constraints. This is why I almost always compose off-line in short bursts and store notes in Google Docs. That way I can add, tweak, & revise from home, work, wherever, until I have something cohesive to post – or simply pitch in the bit bucket. Maybe not an especially efficient way to write, but hey, it works.
Rob O.´s last blog ..iTunes Hero
@Grandad – Sorry about the delay in replying. Trying to battle the pig flu, man flu, alien flu, whatever.
The metamorphosis of blogging? Hey…that’s good! You should write up a post about it. Unless I do it first? Maybe both?
Shakespeare one liner: Why doth thou gawketh at me when thou should merely look down upon thyself and perceive that the joke layeth in your hand? Hey nah-nee, hey nah-nee.
@Rob O. – You actually seem to have things pretty well nailed down as far as blogging is concerned. I should be so organized as to jot down the ideas that come flashing into my head before they go flashing out again. The problem of course is that these “post portions” and ideas usually do their flashing during the wee hours of the night. By the time I stagger out of bed, stumble my way out to my computer, turn it on, wait for it to boot up, find my glasses and fumble for the mouse and keyboard….I’ve forgotten what it was I wanted to write down.
Now if there was such a thing as ‘think-blogging’ I’d be golden?