I am relatively new to blogging again although I actually started my blog in 2009. And no, I am not slow – I just took a couple of years off to work my arse off on a much bigger blog (read website).
And now I find myself back on my blog and I call myself a blogger. Even my email signature reads blogger because it sounds much more professional than world champion toast eater. But four years have passed and my real life friends still don’t really know what a blog is. I mean they get the BIG blogs – no, actually they don’t. They get websites and they get writing online but they don’t get the word “post”, they don’t know any bloggers and they don’t understand why people that don’t know me would be interested in reading about my mother or my dinner. It’s not that they aren’t supportive of me or they don’t enjoy reading about my dinner – it’s just that they don’t live their lives online.
So when I am perplexed by the vagaries of blogging and I try to articulate to them how someone I don’t know has just let me into their lives in the most profound way or when I moan to them about the online bitchiness of people who don’t even know each other, they look at me like I am spending too much time on my own.
There are so many posts (words written on a website for my non blogging friends) about the mummy wars, and about bloggers that write sponsored posts and bloggers that don’t want to read other blogs and bloggers that hate the term blogger and I wonder if it’s all a little insular.
My friends that work and my friends that don’t work just go about working or not working – they don’t invest time and emotional angst into worrying about whether other mothers are working or not and how they are being judged. Sure they read the newspaper and they see the occasional article flare up about the working mum or the stay at home mum but then they turn the page or click on the next story and they read about a woman who disappeared for 11 years and then they read about the NDIS and then they check the weather.
It’s not that they don’t care. I have some of the most awesome and passionate friends on the planet, it’s just that they don’t get trapped into worrying about the judgments other people are making on their own lives.
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I love social media and I feel so lucky to be part of it. I have connected to people and thoughts that I would never had the opportunity to encounter were it not for Twitter and blogging and now my Facebook page which extends to people I don’t know in real life. I log on frequently (where frequently is ALL THE TIME) and I enjoy the debate and the journey. Sometimes I even change the way I have been thinking about an issue and I am grateful for the way my perceptions and thoughts are challenged. Sometimes I just laugh, sometimes I reflect, often I just enjoy something without thinking I HAVE to take something away with me.
But I don’t understand the rivalry. And I hate the thought that it seems to be some kind of competition.
It takes a minute or two to get the gist of a post and if you don’t like it you click away. It costs you nothing. Only a minute of your time which isn’t really a cost if you consider you’ve had the opportunity to open your mind. And if you read a post on one blog it doesn’t mean you can’t read (and love) a post on another. And if you read a post that is sponsored it doesn’t cost you more than reading a post that is not. You aren’t being duped – you’re been giving content you can choose to engage with or walk away from. If you read something that doesn’t fit in with your way of thinking it’s not a personal insult, it doesn’t mean you are wrong – it just means that someones experiences are different to yours and they have a different point of view. It’s an amazing thing this interweb – you can read millions of pages and you can decide what you read again, what you share and what you don’t want to read again. You can decide how to react, you own that – not the person writing the post.
I blog because I love writing. I love having a place to share my thoughts, the things that make me laugh and cry and think. I love that millions of other people are doing it too because it allows me the chance to share in their thoughts and experiences.
I just hate that there has to be so much negativity associated with bloggers and blogging – sometimes we need to be reminded that in the real world there isn’t as much judgment.
I hate the competitiveness/rivalryness too. I just want everyone to do what works for them, respect the choices everyone else makes, applaud each other’s success and provide a leg up when someone needs a hand. Not too much to ask or expect is it?!
Perfectly said
You and me both, Lana!
xxx 🙂
Hear hear Lana!! I’ve experienced a lot of raised eyebrows and undisguised cynicism recently when I have mentioned I am a “blogger”. This has even come from people very close to me. It’s disappointing but I’ve also made some “new” friends and I am blown away by the support there is out there by people such as yourself and your readers. I am choosing to embrace the support and IGNORE the criticism.
I like your style. Literally! xx
You go girl! So so true – as is everything you share with us privileged few who both read your blog and share snippets of our lives online too.
Don’t ever stop writing or sharing. You connect with so many and make us feel so much less alone and just a little more understood. xx
I want to make wallpaper out of the comments you leave on my blog. They make me feel happy every time I read them
My family don’t understand my blogging and think that it is a place that I choose to publicly bitch about them…yet choose to not read it. The blogosphere has exploded in the last couple of years and there really is so much out there to suit all different tastes.
Exactly right. My family read my blog. OY! *trembles*
Totally agree Lana. Thank God for my bloggy friends who understand what I am talking about and why I share.
🙂
I must say I haven’t experienced too much negativity or competitiveness amongst the blogging community itself. I am a small-fry blogger, of course, but I seem to have met a lot of funny, creative folk who just enjoy putting their words out there for the world to read. And I’m glad I’ve (virtually) met so many of them, because my closest friends and family members rarely read my blog! Opinions from my real-world friends are varied, but very few of them ‘get it’ and a lot of them respond as if I clearly have way too much leisure time. It’s hard to explain that I would rather blog than watch TV, for example, or whatever it is that they all do in their down time. Anyway, great to see you blogging more frequently again. I love your posts 🙂
Thank you Charming Mum! I am always bouyed when I read that other people haven’t experienced the negativity or competitiveness of blogging because it makes me realise that it’s not as big an issue as I thought it was 🙂
What a thoughtful piece. I find myself thinking the same things.
WORD
I confess I haven’t experienced any of the competitiveness or rivalries personally, but then I’m not a blogger (love reading them though)
I get myself too caught up in my own perfectionism to start one of my own
Perfectionism is a curse – it’s one I have thankfully managed to shed 😉
“…in the real world there isn’t as much judgment”. Thank you for saying it perfectly. xx
xxxx
I used to blog and most of my friends didn’t really get it either. I gave up blogging because it didn’t “feel” right so there are now only a few blogs I read. I really “got” this post though and as Kerri has said – word.
Thanks Lisa – glad you read mine 🙂
LOVE this post Lana! Much of it applicable to food blogging too! 🙂 Phoodie
I can imagine it is prevalent in all areas of blogging and it’s such a shame. Like it read it – don’t like it click away. It seems so simple to me 🙂
A great post, so perceptive and eloquently written. As someone new to social media and at times finding it a strange and alienating place, I found your words really insightful.The notion of engaging with ‘strangers’ online is inconceivable to my ‘real’ friends, yet there is something marvellous as you said, about engaging with others and sharing their thoughts and opinions; think it fosters tolerance and empathy too… Keep up the posts/blogging, you’re very good at it!
Thank you Leeanne – welcome to the world of social media xxxxx
Well I just love reading your blog. I feel there is a small connection between our lives (and I’ve never even met you!)
Keep up the good work and do what you love.
Oh and one more thing – how did I not know you had a facebook page???? I’ve been missing so much 🙁
Thank you RES – I feel that connection too and I love your comments – thank you xx
There’s nothing quite like stepping outside the echo chamber and realising most people just don’t care. I love social media for most of the reasons you mentioned, but sometimes it’s exhausting!
I agree – which is why I loved your last post so much! x
I wonder one day if the bloggy bubble will burst and all who are left behind are those that love to write and those that love to read the words of those that love to write? So glad you’re back writing your stuff Lana
Thank you Lisa xx
Seriously, I am the world’s worst blogger, in that I procrastinate, faff around with widgets and photos instead of, you know, actually posting, and I read a tonne of blogs, but am rubbish at commenting. Having said all that, I love being a teeny-tiny part of a community that I accidentally found myself having a lot in common with. I haven’t experienced a whole lot of negativity, but I’ve certainly seen it. More than anything it makes me sad that some just can’t – or won’t – play nicely with others.
I hope it never makes me feel sad enough to consider getting off the ride, because I like it here. x
I like it when you blog – wonderful people like you should be blogging more often. xxx
I have just been thinking almost these exact same thoughts! I am pretty new to blogging and the whole social media scene but I can see how easy it is to get sucked into worrying about what others think all the time. It just seems to easy for some people to be negative from behind the ‘safety’ of their keyboard. Reading different opinions is wonderful, reading judgement and nastiness? Not so much! I really like reading your blog Lana (and I was so happy when you followed mine that I did a little dance in the hallway) Thank you.
I love that I made you dance 🙂 xx
I do so know what you mean. I began blogging as therapy. It helps to talk about what’s going on with my special needs daughter and how it effects my family. Real life people get sick of hearing about it. With blogging I can still “talk” about it. If people don’t want to “listen” they don’t have to and I’ll never know about it!!! There’s no need for judgement or nastiness!
So. Well. Said!
IMHO negativity is bread out of insecurity… I try not to buy into it. Easier said than done at times!