What is blogging?
Adam linked to a post he wrote 11 years ago in which he argues that the basic currency of the blog is the thought “that’s interesting” - that's all:
Everything you post to a blog is something you find interesting and want to share with others, be it a link, an article, a photo or a video.
This tied in nicely with an episode of the Micro Monday podcast, a podcast about the micro.blog community, in which he talks about the good old days when a personal blog was just that.
As I wrote in 2017:
A personal blog has one focus: the person
Adam mentions and bemoans the widespread move to a more journalistic style of blogging which, incidentally, happened to me in 2008 when I started to focus primarily on social media. I've written in the past about how I wrote pieces for various magazines (yes, paper ones) so the journalistic style came quite naturally but, looking back, probably shouldn't have.
It didn't exactly suck the fun out of blogging but certainly the spontaneity.
I made a move away from this to a degree when I rebooted the blog and started microblogging here but it's never been truly, well, personal. Not how a personal blog should be.
I think I've always conflated interesting and personal and come up short; sadly playing the comparison game that vexes so many about social media.
Call it an inferiority complex, a belief that my life isn't interesting as I don't do that much. But, as Adam says, it's the ordinary lives, the "random glimpses into humanity" that pique your interest, not just the grand gestures.
Still, it shouldn't matter how long your posts are just that they pass the "interesting" test. That, in itself, can be a problem: we can try too hard which removes the spontaneity leading to what Adam described as "a host of desperately over-written blogs."
I have been as guilty as the next person in my time. In fact, for most of the time since 2008.
So, what is blogging?
I always return to Dave Winer's "unedited voice of a person" with the caveat that it should be free from self-editing as well as external. There are always going to some things we won't, or shouldn't, put online but second guessing ourselves in order to fit an agenda or image is as much to blame for losing that spontaneity.
There is a place for focused long form but the honesty of the personal blog should not be sacrificed at its altar.
@colinwalker Outstanding post. I concur that the personal element has dwindled over the past 15 years, as monetization subsumed a more conversational approach.
This Article was mentioned on cdevroe.com
The New York times and leaders within the democratic party agree that facial recognition technology is dangerous to civil liberties and must be banned.
Cybersecurity professionals are not impressed with Google's facial recognition technology which doesn't know when you're sleeping.Well, damn it! Now I actually have to learn the langue instead of hanging my hat on Perl as I have for the last twenty-five years.Apparently, people don't want to be happy and pursuing happiness can actually make us less satisfied with life. At least according to Nobel Prize-Winning Psychologist, Daniel Kahneman.Redefine what blogging is by looking back at what blogging was.After the macOS Catalina update, I've noticed that my iMac slows to a crawl and freezes to the point of useless and sometimes spontaneously reboots. Not a shutdown-restart type of reboot, the sudden black screen and startup sort of reboot. The Activity Monitor and Console apps have not been helpful in troubleshooting what might be the issue. David Shayer on TidBits offers some possibilities as to what may be the cause.I am not sure what Daniel means by but assuming he is using the Files app, accessing files is as simple as accessing his iCloud account in many ways including iCloud in Finder on macOS. If he means he wants direct access to the iOS file system - never gonna happen. The apps are sandboxed and the file system is encrypted by hardware. Share:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Yep. I've embraced all sorts of random posts and nonsequiturs. Why not?
Absolutely, Paul. Why not indeed.
Dino Bansigan discovers for himself not only that “almost every post on a person’s blog […] is personal commentary” but goes on to realize only the very heart of blogging: “It might be the case that personal commentary on a subject, is what makes a post valuable.” This is true even for the humble linklog (or linkblog); curating what to share itself is an act of personal commentary on what you find important enough to mention. (Apparently back in 2012 there was something of a debate over linkblogs.) Blogging always was supposed to be about what you see, whether you’re looking inward or outward, not about trying to determine what some reader-person might find valuable. This always was the psychological danger and risk of blogging: the potential value-added was you. ETA: I’d plumb forgot that I’d been meaning to link this Colin Walker post asking and answering, “What is blogging?” Naturally enough, it narrows its gaze to the person and what they find interesting.