The Problem with Blogging and Living
November 28, 2010 6 Comments
I have blogged on and off since about 2007. In shorter periods of time, people have garnered book deals and minor celebrity from blogging. There’s even a marketplace to teach people how to market blogs from cyberspace to meatspace — through search engine optimization and advertising and contests and competitions to join the media Borg.
But sometimes in that upward climb to popular culture and acclaim, blogs lose accountability. There has to be a check in place beyond what is marketable or what is most searched and what garners the most comments. At some point, one has to wonder, “Is this good? Is this the best I can do right now? What will others gain from my work? What do I want them to gain?”
Most blogging successes derive from schticks: a hungry girl or stuff white people like or bitchy amusing observations or kitschy popular feminism. But sometimes a piece of work needs more. To give it more, a writer/artist/creative mind needs time, positive reinforcement, resources to thrive, and inspiration.
What happens to that creativity when a true talent lacks some or all of these? Who or what should be held to account?
It is difficult to blog as a marginalized person. What you write affects your relationships with family and friends, your job prospects, your day-to-day functionality. To turn blogging into a more substantial living takes chronic investment and engagement — neither of which stems from how good you are or what you have to offer. It takes knowing the right people and the courage to own your words. And more than anything, it takes honesty.
So what happens if the world’s inability to accept you as you are hampers you in a venue where you want to thrive? What happens when holding people accountable in cyberspace hastens your demise offline? How do you reconcile what you want, feel, and believe with what’s expected of you?
These are the concerns of those who care about truth, but for whatever reason, they have to go through hell to be able to tell it. They have to ignore their families and the news reports saying having opinions and convictions can destroy their futures. Those people have to live and share their stories, and for all our sakes, I hope they survive. I hope they make something precious of themselves, beyond the marketplace.
I hope they keep living and writing.
About problem chylde
always appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into your writing.
(Hi, M.
This is off topic … but do you have any interest in a petition supporting Wikileaks?)
Sure. Do you still have my email address? Shoot me a message so we can put something together.
I think through most of human history almost no one had the luxuries necessary to write, and probably many had the inherent skills. We certainly have more opportunities than ever at this point in history to realize creative abilities, but the way I look at the world its still only a tiny, miniscule fraction of our possibilities – and even in the best structured society will only every be that.
But while that puts it all in perspective for me, yes, I am kind of missing your point. In the here and now when writing is a creative skill that can be realized, what can we do to be sure it is? I don’t like the idea of holding someone to account – to me that strikes of blame trying to simplify the complexities of social responsibility. But what elements should we look at – families that don’t support writing as impractical (but are they wrong?), an educational structure that aims to educate even those with no interest rather than focusing on those with talent, an economic structure that leaves some struggling to the point they can’t take time for creative pursuits?
Not all potential greats in any field will achieve (most won’t), but I think some of the above at least are to blame. But at what cost? Is it necessary that we maybe accidentally demoralize a few real talents in order to keep many less talented from wasting their lives on a dream that can never come true? Do we support the gifted writer at the expense of leaving poor students out of the college loop?
I don’t write myself (as you can probably tell) but I have known both gifted writers who didn’t get their chance, and untalented writers who threw their lives away on a dream that could never come true. So I don’t know the answer, and suspect that we’ll always have to settle for a good level of imperfection.
I don’t usually use this particular response. It seems so…pop culture, text message, appropriated urban culture surface. But in this case, I really only have that response, so filled with cognizance, meaning and experience.
Word.
i feel this so much.