Tuesday, January 25, 2005

"To Blog, Or Not To Blog..."

You know what I'm getting a bit sick of? Tedious blog posts about blogging.

Everywhere I turn on the Internet, more and more blogs are filled with more and more angst-filled posts about how blogging relates to the rest of some blogger's daily life, whether or not they should continue, the existential import of all of it, blogging goals for the future, why someone is not going to be able to post anything for the next 4 1/2 hours, who's ranked where in the blog "ecosystem," and the future posts someone is planning deep within the recesses of his/her mind for which we are presumably to wait by the computer with anxious anticipation until this veritable cybergold flows from brain to keyboard to internet ether.

Hey, folks, not to burst your bubble, but it's all disposable. These posts are read in 30 seconds, and then everybody moves on to something else. It's largely forgotten by tommorrow. If you've got something to post, post it. If you don't, don't. But consider sparing everyone the slightly self-important metanarrative on blogging itself. Nobody else seems to be willing to tell you, so I will: it's about as compelling as a twelve-part radio series about the route the announcer took to work this morning.

Yes, a few bloggers made a difference by exposing the CBS fiasco. We're all glad for it. But it's starting to seem as if a few successes are going to drive the medium to eventual death-via-narcissism. If there's something to say, by all means say it. But if you don't have anything to say for a few days, we'll all understand. We'll find some other way to fill that 30 seconds today.

(NOTE: Fellow blogger, if you are wondering whether I am talking about you personally here, believe me, I am not. This sort of thing is so ubiquitous in the blogosphere now that it would be impossible to narrow it down to a few prime suspects. No particular post or blogger brought it to mind. Not that that will keep you from hating me anyway....)

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