Blogging

Here’s the thing about blogging. When I started (back in 2003, which when you think about it is a really long time ago, both in terms of years and cultural shifts), blogs were an obscure new idea. Hardly anyone had one, and there were no rules about what you could do. You just wrote posts and put them out there, and maybe people found your blog and maybe they didn’t. Thousands of people started blogs and then quit after half a dozen posts. A few hit the big time, and a few, like me, kept going just because they liked it.

Then six or seven years ago, there was a major shift in the “blogosphere.” Suddenly blogs became a thing, part of your Branding Strategy, and journalists and writers and Internet personalities all started blogging. There started to be rules—spoken and unspoken—about what you should blog about, how often you should post, how long the posts should be. Always include a picture! Keep your paragraphs short! Have a theme!

A lot of very good blogs started during this time period, blogs I still follow. But there didn’t seem to be a place anymore for bloggers like me, who don’t have a brand or an online presence or a following. I just like to write about what I’m thinking about, and I like to put it out there instead of shoving it in a drawer.

The blog branding wave seems to be subsiding, at least in part because doing a major branded blog like that is nearly impossible to do by yourself. (Especially if you don't like to write. Why would someone start a blog if they don't like to write?) Even the ones that started small have folded or become group blogs with multiple writers, “sponsored” posts, advertisements, and associate links to make them financially viable.

I have no complaints about this. I read some of those blogs regularly (and some of them, like Melanie Shankle’s and Anne Bogel’s, are still run by individuals). I’m happy for them that they’re able to make a living doing it. But I’m also happy that the Eye of the Internet seems to have moved on to other things so that there is less pressure to blog in a certain way, and the peons like me can keep doing what we like to do, which is writing what we’re thinking about and posting it.

It is a little difficult sometimes to keep going when you’re writing a blog that hasn’t “caught on,” because there is so much value in our society placed on success as measured by numbers. But I’m used to that, and that isn’t why I ended up not posting this past week.

Nope, I took a blog break this week because I read some opinion pieces about the Emmys, and watched some videos of new artists whose work they felt was unfairly ignored by the Emmy voters. And I realized with very great clarity how hopelessly irrelevant I have become, sitting in my 3-bed, 2-bath house, married to a man who makes enough money that I can choose whether or not to work, unworried about drive-by shootings or whether or not our heat will be turned off because I couldn't pay the bill.

I am that supremely inconsequential thing, an over-educated, financially stable, middle-aged, straight married white woman. Women in my demographic are pretty much the opposite of Influencers (a term I only read about this week). It’s both humbling to realize that my people no longer matter and also enormously freeing because I don’t have to worry about trying to be relevant or influential—it’s not going to happen, and the harder I try, the more I prove that I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I don’t know how other people are living out there, and the contentious issues that are facing our society are not ones that directly impact me. I can discuss them as an interested observer, even as a passionately opinionated observer, but it's not about me. I mean, seriously— I can write about my experiences with sexual harassment when I was younger, but frumpy 56-year-olds don't worry about it. (apologies for the way that was worded previously. I was trying to be funny but it missed.)

Sadly, the main way that women in my demographic make their presence known is as consumers. Unsettling, that is. We wield a lot of cash. (Insert here Kathy Bates' parking lot rage scene from Fried Green Tomatoes. I'd link to it but I'm pretty sure you've all seen it. It pops right up on Google if you haven't.)

All of this leaves open the possibility that I could quit blogging. But as you know, I’ve quit plenty of times before and I always start again. Maybe I limit my topics to things that directly affect me and those of you who read here. Maybe I just keep going with better awareness and a more humble attitude, feeling grateful that I live in a place and a time when I can do this just because I find it satisfying, and I like to write. And extra grateful that a few of you take the time to read it.