Blue Like You

Archive for the ‘Is there life after blogging?’ Category

Well, I’m slowly trying to get up to speed on recent news events after having been cloistered in my self-imposed exile for several weeks.

The last week was spent in a milieu devoid of any electronic devices or even newspapers, so I feel somewhat like Rip Van Winkle in my effort to catch up.

However, the great advantage of taking several weeks off and getting your mind off of the news is that you actually realize that there is more to life than blogging and politics. It’s a great chance to reconnect with loved ones and nature.

I learned how sand flies lay their eggs, thanks to an observant, young fellow-camper. She had been watching them back into little holes on the beach and was explaining the whole process to us. Imagine all this going on right under our noses (and feet)!

Loons, hawks, eagles, gulls, chipmunks and raccoons were our daily companions.

Our moods shifted according to the wind and the lake and the weather that would dictate our fishing and beach patterns. But even a storm is a soul-stirring experience at a lake.

And so now I am back in the city, but part of me is still there watching the waves crash against the rocks.

After just having returned from several blissful days of golfing, swimming and a wee bit too much partying, I’ve achieved a more introspective view of the activity of blogging.

As Sandy notes, it can take over your life to the point that you feel compelled or obligated to write something when someone sends you a tip or you see something in MSM that angers you, or some new story breaks.

Another problem is that many bloggers become addicted to their own stats and can’t take it when their readership begins to decline. So they try to pump it back up with provocative posts designed to increase their hits and promote a lively discussion.

And trust me, they don’t do it for the money. A blogger solely relying on revenue from ad sources would be living far below the poverty line.

Personally, I blog for the purpose of being able to vent, and to allow my readers to do the same. Sometimes they agree with me, and often they don’t. But we try to keep it civil.

My question to you is, why do you keep coming back to read a particular blog? What attracts you and makes that blog part of your daily routine?

Some bloggers grow a large readership by making liberal use of four-letter words while pillorying other bloggers. It becomes their modus operandi, and they spend their days trolling the blogs of rival bloggers for fodder in their next mud-flinging campaign.

The interesting thing is that these types of blogs can have a substantial readership which tells me they are fulfilling some kind of need far beyond a particular political partisanship.

My theory is that just like rubberneckers that seem fascinated with car wrecks on the highway, these readers get some kind of schadenfreude-ish kick from seeing a blogger with opposing views being humiliated and defiled.

Perhaps it is addictive, the way porn or gambling can stimulate certain brain centres.

Anyway, those are my theories and I would love to hear from you. Are you one of those people that regularly visits blogs that put other bloggers down?

What about this blog? Why do you keep coming back here?

Please enlighten me. Thanks in advance for your input.