skelephant

Over the past couple of years I’ve tried and failed to keep up with a regular schedule of writing on my blog. Most of it stems from the lack of, or losing focus of what it is that I actually want to write about. In my short time of writing on the web, I’ve spent most of my time using the self-hosted version of WordPress as my default backend. Out of frustration with my lack of posting I experimented with Expression Engine, Tumblr and Movebable Type in an effort to try and blame the tool for my writing horrible writing output ratio. And while all of these are great products that make it easy to get posting done, I found myself going back to WordPress only to have realized that it’s not the product you use to get your posting done; it’s the effort and comfort that you have when putting forth that effort that motivates you to keep going. Creating interesting posts that you yourself are proud of is the only way you can expect anyone to pay attention to what you are saying. We live in an age where everyone is shouting for their opinion to be heard, but out of those thousands and millions of voices there is only a small percentage that are really worth reading. Why is that? I don’t have an answer specifically, but how many times have you read a post that you can feel? A post that is so blatantly fresh and well written that you actually enjoy reading every word, and sometimes read it over and over just to let the ideas sink in. Although I can’t describe it completely I know that you know what I’m talking about. It’s that one piece that planted the idea of blogging into your head. The post that made you get it. The post that made you want to be able to have an effect on a reader similar to the one you had.

The Tumblr Effect

Right now, the big player in the blog community is WordPress, but Tumblr right now is picking up mostly because it’s easier to use, get recognized and is easy to customize. While this is fine to a certain extent, my experimentation with Tumblr have caused me to notice a phenomenon that I call The Tumblr Effect. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with the product. In fact, it’s an amazing service and a lot of writers whom I look up to use this service for the writing they publish. My problem is with the abuse of one of the features that come with the service, the “Re-blog” feature. The Tumblr effect is when you happen to visit someones “blog” and their “content” while interesting and entertaining isn’t their own. Its content that has been re-blogged (I can’t stand that word) from one user, that “re-blogged” it from another use, and so on. There is no opinion about the piece that is being “re-blogged”, no proof of absorption. It’s blogging for the sake of being able to label yourself a “blogger”, it’s online ego masturbation at the least and it misses the point of what blogging is all about.

What I’m trying to say can be summed up easily: Blogging should be about presenting who you are and the unique point of view you have of the world, to the world. If all you can show for yourself is the work that others have created, you really need to think twice before pressing that “re-blog this” button because you aren’t fooling me and you probably aren’t fooling anyone else.