A dying medium? A crippled connection tool? A once (arguably)
revered form of literary expression reduced to advertisement and/or political
bullshit?
Whatever your view of blogging, if you’ve been around the
blogosphere long enough you know it’s dramatically changed in the last few
years. What used to be the so-called, “intelligent” side of social media
outlets has since been overshadowed and overrun by quick-and-now attention
spans encouraged by FaceBook updates and Twitter feeds. One hundred sixty
characters now seem to hold more merit than a three point essay or even a
well-formulated rant. Likewise, a blog was once a badge of honor like
Nineteenth Century name cards; their URL’s passed around and discussed between
friends and strangers late at night, during working hours, or any other time of
day when the need to respond became too much to ignore. In recent years, the
only blogs you hear about are political, fashion, or gossip versions. And these
are not written by anonymous anybodies pouring out their ideas late at night under
glowing laptop screens, but rather by highly paid, “Editorialists” in penthouse
offices and magazine front rooms. Not exactly, in my humble opinion, what blogs
were meant to be.
Two years back I wrote
about the eminent death of blogging. The post was immediately mistaken by some as
a hate piece against FB, but further discussion showed it more of a sad goodbye
than a blame game. When I wrote that, I was lamenting the fact that my blogroll
had lost numerous members over the four years I’d been blogging and worse, was
only half as active as it had been even one year before. Now? Less than one
percent of the bloggers that were on that list (I still retain the complete
list of blog’s I’ve followed) post (defining a post as more than one hundred
sixty characters) more than once every two to three weeks. If you’re doing the
math, that represents a 530% decline in bloggers – using the small scale of ELEVEN
– in just two years. If there was anyone
reading this so far in a disagreeable spirit, what does that number do for you?
The thing that saddens me most is not the loss of bloggers
but rather the exodus of readers. More readers fuel more discussion, more
discussion fuels more ideas, and more ideas fuel more bloggers. The reader is
where it starts. More times than I can count over the last six years, I would
meet someone who informed me they were a reader of ELEVEN. In addition to the
regular wordsmiths and idea-boxers I jousted with, these silent readers were an
inspiration to me. With no return expectation, I would sometimes craft a post
knowing specific someone’s were out there. Knowing my words were being read,
invisible as well as in plain view, was a constant source of fiery inspiration.
So where have all the readers gone? To put it simply, life
is just too busy for most to devote the time it takes to be an active reader of
blogs. Children, work, family, friendships, television, hobbies, and of course,
Facebook, have all taken a higher place on the priority list where blogging
used to reside. That is not a slam on any of those things; priorities are
personal decisions and no matter what your parents may have told you growing
up, no one has the right to tell someone else their priorities are wrong. If
you have limited time in your day, and blogging doesn’t hold the grip on your
soul like everything else on your list, then it has to go. It’s saddening, but
I get it.
I’m often frustrated when people bitch and whine without
offering solution ideas to their complaint. Unfortunately, I don’t see a clear
answer to this issue. As things electronic seem to do, blogging may hold on for
awhile, but the crazy mad season of bloom it once enjoyed has mostly faded to a
dull pitch. It may still hold value as a private
(sarcasm intended) diary for some, a safer
(again sarcastic) venue for family photos and stories, (and of course the paid
versions will live on while they’re still funded,) the intellectual
inter-change of belief system ideals, world views, and off-color humor – all
under the beauty of e-relationships – is only staggering along at very best.
Fix it? I’m not sure it can be fixed. And besides, I’ve outwritten my one
hundred sixty characters and no one has the time to keep reading, so who am I
talking to anyway?
What am I personally going to do about it, and what does the
future of ELEVEN look like? I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument that FB is
an acceptable alternative for how and what I see blogs as being; so despite the
constant requests, I still reserve my right not to join. And since I have yet
to find anything else that does
compare, and even though the readers just aren’t around in the numbers they
used to be, I want to keep writing here. I refuse to turn ELEVEN into an
e-diary or a family picture album (even though I like reading others that do
that), but would rather like to take ELEVEN back to a dialogue of ideas and
opinions. One of my favorite things about blogging over the years is that the
discussions contained within would often spill into real life, face-to-face
conversations, which so many electronic forms of communications do not
propagate. So if ELEVEN can give back to the world an opportunity to interact,
discuss, or just plain think, I feel it still has worth. Blogging is not dead
yet. Until it is I will continue to be on its roll call.
And for what’s it worth, this post is approximately 5397
characters.
