I was talking to my mother about it yesterday. She gave blogging a try. She managed a grand total of 3 posts before she needed a break, a permanent break, that is. I thought it would be a no-brainer for her. She used to be editor of the lifestyles page of a newspaper. She wrote a column every week. No problem coming up with things to say, people to interview.
But then it occurred to me that she was approaching it all wrong. Too much journalist in her. Everything had to be a Blog Post, she couldn't just write about what interested her. I said, believe it or not there are plenty of people willing to come around and read about things that you think are "nothing". I read an article about journals in the paper. We are automatically interested in things that people write. If someone took the time to write it then there must be something there that is worth reading. (There are always exceptions to this, of course.) I've certainly spent more than my fair share of time reading blogs and articles that in the end did me little good.
Here in Sweden there is a little phenomenon with some young women bloggers that get an incredible amount of readers, and I have seen their blogs. They don't write about anything. Certainly nothing anyone "needs" to read. Yet the readers come in droves anyways.
Then I came to the next thing. That is people love to read about negative things. We are drawn to it like flies. Many very popular bloggers rely exclusively on negative comments in their writing. The more sarcastic, the better. Even better when the bloggers get in blog fights, then the readership goes through the roof. I used to follow a fiber blog, which has since closed. The blogger used to spend a great deal of her time making fun of her children and sometimes her husband. She even went so far to tell us all that she hated her little daughter's name and refused to use it, always a nickname instead. I never said anything, not my place to judge, but if that child had been a bit sensitive like me, she will be on a therapist's bed at 40 talking about the neurosis she got from this. She managed to collect whole pile of readers and comments in barely any time at all.
Or take politics for example, whatever "side" you find yourself on, who doesn't love to read or listen to people that basically spend all their time attacking the other side. It's safe, it's comfortable to be on the other side of the subject of the negativity. It does us no good as individuals or as a group, but we all (or most of us that aren't saints yet) love it anyways.
Anyways, back to me. I have been blogging for a good number of years now, and I feel that I still haven't managed to hit my stride. It's been very frustrating for me, but who knows maybe I am like my mother, always needing to write a Blog Post. But maybe the things I said to her, that were really just me saying a bunch of stuff that popped into my head without a lot of previous thought, were things I needed to hear too.
I've seen a lot of blogs, read a lot of articles. I enjoy the eye-candy. But the posts that really make me think and remember aren't the ones that have only beautiful pictures, but have something else, some deeper meaning or issue. In other words something I can ponder and find a way to use to help me understand myself and the world better. Negativity is a place I will never go, no matter what readership it costs me. But I do believe it is quite OK to express a negative opinion about something, but not to attack or dwell on it. When all is said and done, I really don't enjoy the superficial, for me it is all about going beyond the surface, layering on the meaning. That's the place that I want to be. If I can find my way there through blogging, then I will have accomplished my aim.
Now, if you have managed to make it this far, what is a blog post without pictures!!!
