Is Blogging Now Irrelevant?

Read this post from Chris Guillebeau last night on why blogging isn’t what it used to be.

On its own, blogging is no longer perceived as valuable and interesting.

Don’t get me wrong: I love blogging. If the world conformed to my whims and I could choose only one media and platform—no social media, no email list, nothing else—I’d pick blogging.

Alas, just as blogs have changed, so too has the way that people engage with blogs. For example, I don’t have comments on my blog anymore, but that wasn’t entirely my choice. I didn’t change; the culture changed. User preferences changed.

There are exceptions to this pattern too, of course. Some people are still doing great with traditional blogs. So what’s different about those? From what I can tell, the exceptions are largely segmented along gender lines (meaning that those blogs are largely read by women or men, not both) and often focused on a specific industry or topic.

The point is that I don’t think you should look at the exceptions. You should look at the normal experience for most people, especially if you’re just starting out and are looking to find your way.

Personality still matters. There’s still hope. But the point is that you can’t just blog your way to stardom or wealth or whatever your goal is.

At first, when I read this, I thought to myself, well, “gosh, aren’t I stupid, starting daily blogging at the exact moment it becomes irrelevant?”

But then I thought to myself, I’m not doing this for “stardom or wealth or whatever,” I’m doing this for two very specific reasons: 1) I want a venue to express what I think is important and 2) I want to improve my writing and my thinking, which I think daily writing in a public venue does.

I already have a job I enjoy. I am definitely not looking for stardom. And I think wealth is very much overrated.

Of course, I would love to develop an audience or a following for this site, but for now, I know there’s a handful of people who like it, and that’s ok, too.

So does blogging still matter?

pale_blue_dot

Carl Sagan photo, h/t Kevin Simler, Melting Asphalt

That little blue dot is earth. On a big enough scale, all of our drama is irrelevant. When it comes down to it, these movements and machinations are just poetry on a very insignificant island in space. All we can do is find joy in some form of poetry that strikes our fancy.

And this blog, well, it’s just the poetry I have picked.