The So-Called Politics of Blogging

This topic is being beaten to death, but I’ll beat it some more.

Firstly, I agree whole-heartedly with Catherine's assessment of so-called blogging “politics”. Like she says, it’s not politics; it’s hurt feelings. Many bloggers are aspiring writers. We want to be heard. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t put our writing on the internet, it would be in a journal, hidden under our beds. I’ll admit it hurts my feelings when my readership doesn’t grow as quickly as I’d like. It upsets me when bloggers I admire, and visit faithfully don’t return the favour. But I accept it, and I stand back and look at the reasons: I’m relatively new to the community, my writing needs work, and I often post about trivial matters (there are probably more reasons than this). I know other bloggers with little traffic for different reasons: they don’t update regularly, they don’t visit, their subject matter is not compelling. Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve become acutely aware that the blogosphere is a big pond and I am a very small fish indeed. There are many amazing writers and lots of stories being told—with this much “competition”, I’m happy anyone’s reading me at all!

My point is, don’t whine; suck it up. If you want to be a writer you’d better get used to rejection.

The second hot topic is the “commercialization” of the blogosphere. Some folks think there is no place for advertising in the blogosphere, and earning money for blogging is inherently corruptive.

I couldn’t disagree more. First of all, correct me if I’m wrong, but are we really talking about a lot of money? Is a blogger going to alter her message for beer and popcorn money? If I am wrong, if we are talking about a lot of money, again, what’s the problem? As long as it is clear that something is being sold, we have a choice whether or not we want to buy it. In addition, is this not supposed to be a supportive community? If a blogger can make a few bucks, shouldn’t we be happy for him or her? If a blogger can even make enough money to be a stay-at-home parent, isn’t that a good thing?

Perhaps if more women earned money blogging, the blogosphere would become more representative. It really isn’t right now, don’t you think? Most of the bloggers I’ve come across are writing from a privileged position—they’re educated, reasonably financially secure, with some amount of time on their hands. I don’t know any single parent, minimum wage earning bloggers, do you? Tell me if I’m wrong.

Please, let’s stop wringing our hands over this. If you really can’t take rejection, maybe a diary under your bed is better for you. If you really hate blogs with ads, there are plenty of other blogs to visit, but there’s no need to disparage those who choose to advertise.

Above all, let’s be more supportive of each other’s choices.