sorryless

To err is human, to blog is . . even more human

Sorryless48 Comments

I was recently asked by a friend what this whole blogging business is about. I replied with something to the effect of it being a place where I can write whatever the hell I feel like writing whenever the hell I feel like writing it.

This dude is way more social media savvy than yours truly, and yet, the blogosphere pretty much escaped him. And he ain’t alone. In spite of the fact that every news agency worth its circulation has its mitts in blogging to some extent, along with most major celebrities and a shit ton of brand businesses, blogs remain a curiosity.

I’ve listed a few reasons for this, completely unsubstantiated and totally unverifiable. Which makes me overqualified for a cable news position.

1. Fucking People- We have something like 7.5 billion people who call planet earth home. Way too many fucking people. Especially when you consider that only a couple hundred million of ’em are blogging. Imagine a banquet facility that can seat 750 people and then imagine a small table in the corner. The blogosphere would be the waiter who serves that table.

2. Content- This blog post is the perfect example of what my friend Bill likes to call “fluff”. In a newspaper article, I wouldn’t be able to say shit like “Fuck Wolf Blitzer’s talking beard,” and “Grade A Kardashian Ass!”. But on my blog, I can say whatever in the blessed fuck I want to say. This freedom is both defining and problematic. As I’ll explain . . .

3. Perspective- This freedom is defining in that blogs are living, breathing platforms for the freedoms we hold truest. But the very thing that makes it great, also mitigates its strength. The vast majority of the world ain’t blogging, and in a great many instances, this is because they’ve got more pressing matters to attend to. Like finding food, water and shelter. Their stories would be fascinating reads if they weren’t so preoccupied with remaining upright to tell ’em. Instead, we get Bill’s search for the perfect Reuben, and Jane’s “fat day”, and “How to order at Applebees”. Don’t get me wrong, there’s great content on here. But the reputation still precedes . .

4. Elliot Gould- Okay, I can’t blame Gould. It was his character (Dr. Ian Sussman) in the crap film Contagion who threw the entire blogosphere under the bus with a single line-  “A blog is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation,”. It’s the only memorable line to come out of that flick and it spawned more shade than E.L. James.

5. The Term- What in the blessed fig of Newton’s apple were the creators thinking when they had the gravitas to coin the term “weblog” and then condense it into “blog”? Its economy ain’t a sexy looking thing. There’s zero romance to the word. Which isn’t to say you have to be sexy sounding to be appealing, but still. A ‘blog’ sounds like something you contract when eating shellfish. If I didn’t know anything about it, I wouldn’t want to know anything about it.

Add in the fact that other social media platforms (most notably Facebook) get lumped in with the term ‘blogging’, causing even further confusion. And speaking of confusion . . shit, I’ve had blogs on and off for more than a decade and even I get confused as fuck when someone says they wrote a blog. Some peeps use blog as a verb, for whatever the hell reason. As far as I’m concerned, this ain’t helping matters any, if a blogger doesn’t even know how to describe the shit they’re putting out there. Woodward and Bernstein weren’t like “Yo peeps! We wrote a Washington Post about this Dick in the White House!”. Credibility comes with being consistent. Reference the New England Patriots . . Amazon . . a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

All that said, I think I’ll stick it out on WordPress for a while longer. It’s the only social media site I truly believe in, and I still dig the efficacy of having a blog. No deadlines and no rules. Just writing, whatever I wish.

The hell with Dr. Sussman.

 

 

48 thoughts on “To err is human, to blog is . . even more human”

  1. I’m approaching the 10-year anniversary on my little corner of the world – and yes – you explained blogging very well. Surprise – a future beach walk is about blogging.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. LOL on the blog shellfish disease. I’ve suffered for years now. I think blogging is the only place a weird person such as myself can find her people. Yeah, yeah, in person is OK, and there are weird people out there. But your waiter analogy re: who’s blogging is perfect.

    And about number 3: How to order at Applebees… the answer is DON’T. Ever.

    Liked by 1 person

    • T Sizzle,
      It’s true! LOL!
      And it’s doubly true that weird peeps like us need a place like this. In real time, I find myself having to rein myself in. On here, no such need. And I consider our “weird” to be a fantastic character trait by the way, so to hell with those who see it as something negative!
      Yeah, I was surprised at how few bloggers are out there! I guessed half a million because I didn’t figure it was lots, but I was still way off.
      And as for Number 3, you understand what I’m saying . . .

      Liked by 1 person

      • Weird is A.W.E.S.O.M.E.!

        Blogging was so the thang back in the early aughts. I even had thousands of readers, back in the day (and a few blogs ago). Now, it’s a small lovely group of weirdos like myself, present company included.

        Yes, yes. I just felt that needed to be said… to keep people safe from Applebee’s!

        Liked by 2 people

        • Really? Me too! And I was miserable for the most part. Well, not when I was writing, that part was great. But the rest of it, meh. And it really pissed me off when an inconsequential post or some provocative pic of a celeb would fetch a couple thousand hits in a day while a post I worked my ass on fetched a small percentage of that number. But it taught me a valuable lesson. To write for me. To not write for kudos or numbers, because that is fleeting.
          So thank YOU, my fellow weirdo. This is a MUCH better club, if I do say so myself. 🙂
          As far as Applebee’s, I have to say . . you are doing the Lord’s work, lol!

          Liked by 1 person

  4. B,

    As per, you are spot on. So many look at me with a… you do what? Oh. That’s cool. Or. What does that mean? And let us not forget the but why?

    Who cares… I ain’t quitting any time soon!!

    Peace, writing Whatever the Fuck we want and entertaining the readers who know…

    Liked by 1 person

  5. THIS.

    Yes. I’m in my third year. I toyed with it for awhile, I made my FB family probably crazy with my posts, I wrote for a local “magazine” as their health/fitness person. When he unceremoniously removed me to give it to another dude he knew, well, it pissed me off and was the fire to make me actually START said blog. I cannot say how satisfying it’s been letting my creativity out and also knowing people all over the planet can read my crazy thoughts if they so desire. And yes, to write what I want to write without someone telling me I’m not writing “right” or writing what they want me to write. Ah, the life of a free spirited rebel…. anyway… yes to all of this… and I do know the difference between my “blog” and writing a “post” for my blog 😉

    Liked by 2 people

    • Sassy,
      Everything really IS bigger and badder in Texas! LOL.
      Seriously though, your blog is always a treat. It’s fun, educational and most of all . . sassy. And it matters to those who read it. To cull something positive, to consider something they hadn’t before reading you. To me, that is everything.
      So good for you! And us. Both!
      PS- Yes! It’s a blog post people! Not a blog! LOL

      Like

  6. A blog combines all of the best parts of the social media universe without a lot of the limitations. I’m not just limited to 280 characters (Twitter), but I can put up short posts when I want to; I don’t have to post everything based around a picture (Snapchat and Instagram), but I can put pictures into my posts; and the conversations I have via blogs is much better than what happens on Facebook, without all of the annoying ads and other uninvited intrusions on FB and other social media platforms. There’s also something about the “friends” universe of FB that invites arguments and conflict and dysfunction. So, I agree, while there are some issues I have with blogging — primarily, that I have never been able to figure out how to turn it into an on-going conversation with my readers — this is still my favorite. It’s like the journal I never had. I can write about whatever I want in this corner of the universe without limit, without review or editorial control imposed by somebody else. When I first started blogging, there were people out there that said the only way you could have a successful blog was to focus on a topic — cooking or gardening or music or politics, for example. But that’s not me. My blog represents a pretty accurate reflection of who I am and what I think about. Except for those things I can’t write about because co-workers and family read it occasionally. As a result, I don’t talk about work in any detail and I don’t share the unhappy details of family life when they occur. So … it’s not entirely accurate. The only way to have an entirely accurate blog would be for it to be truly anonymous and not read by anybody who knew me — only then could I be 100% honest and free to write whatever I wanted.

    Liked by 2 people

    • King,
      Agreed on everything you just said. And yes, the idea of being totally anonymous has never worked with me either. I always had people who knew, even if I was writing under an alias. So I had to be mindful of that.
      But also yes to the idea of being laser focused on just one thing. No. I never have been. And it’s one of the things I dig most about blogging. The ability to just dig into something, anything. Good stuff.
      Thank you for the great chime.

      Liked by 2 people

  8. Having been through the cluster-you-know-what of adding a store to my own half acre on the ‘Net, I can tell you those Happiness Coaches at WordPress are worth. their. weight. in. gold. They talked me off the ledge more than once and I am ever so grateful for them and for stumbling across such cool blogs like yours. Color me happy as a clam at hide tide today. Now if I can only get caught up on the old inbox and blog reading. Oh well, Rome wasn’t built in a day, was it?

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Dearest Marco,

    First off, I have been busy, and have not had a lot of free time, and just getting caught up with all this graffiti.

    I am, secondly, both floored and honoured that you consider me a friend.

    This blog? Your blog? This is a writing workshop par excellence, a way to see what works and what does not work. There are many writers who say that Reading is their literary workshop. That being very true, is one thing, but rolling up your sleeves and actually writing is quite another. That is very refreshing, and what writing should be, a constant search for lost time.

    I just read French author, and Nobel laureate, Patrick Mondiano’s work Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier (So you don’t get lost in the neighborhood). The entire novel is built around a lost address book, just as you have mentioned in other posts, that writers take bits and pieces, here and there, and turn them into stories.

    Billy Boy!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Billy Boy,

      Reading tends to achieve the “channeled” effect with yours truly. In other words, I find that sometimes, if the author really strikes a chord with me, my writing will bear the fingerprint of their style. It’s quite subtle, but it does happen.
      A novel based entirely on a lost address book sounds like my kind of story!
      And YES! I do so love to tinker on stories here, a healthy enough amount of which never see the light of day.
      To the bits and pieces of here and there. May we turn them into glorious things!
      Thank you friend.
      Marco

      Liked by 1 person

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