Why I blog? Just my 2¢

I find myself amazed at how the blogging/networking phenomenon has taken the world by storm over the past few years. Every day I seem to find a new one to subscribe to....I'm hanging out for the universal ID idea to work across all the different blogging platforms, it would make my life easier. But that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

Just before christmas I was feeling very disillusioned with the whole deal. I actually pulled up the 'delete your account' page and sat there for a few minutes with an itchy mouse finger. Then I decided that before I did it, I really should check if there was any info I wanted to back up. I got totally distracted reading through a few older posts and before I knew it had changed my mind. Not because I rate myself as a blogger but because the comments were pure gold. I hadn't laughed so hard for ages.

But since then...well I don't know, maybe I'm just ultra sensitive at the moment, but in the last couple of weeks I have had at least half a dozen people comment directly to me to the effect of "you are blogging an awful lot at the moment aren't you?"

So I'm blogging a lot.....In comparison to what?
If I compare it to the number of times a year I wear socks (which is 2 or 3 times.... tops) well yeah I guess I am. But if I was to do the whole blogs versus the number of cups of coffee I consume then I'd have to say No, I don't blog much!

Could be a touch of paranoia on my part. What exactly do they mean? Do I just take that statement at face value? Are they just making general conversation,  is it a  good thing or not? Do they mean I'm blogging too often and I should just pull my head in and ease up on the number of posts?
Feedback is great but be a little more specific would ya? I'm not a mind reader.


It seems to me that unless you restrict your posts to close friends/family only, once a blogger develops an audience (of both supporters and critics) demands begin to be made on the blogger by the audience.

I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about, you would have found them on your own blog, if you have one. Demands like : Post more often, stop flooding my inbox with your posts, sick of/love the drama,  post more personal blogs, I want to see pictures, make a video, your jokes are lame, if you post another fcking music video I will hunt you down and kill you and your cat...

I could go on and on but I think you get the point.  And it makes me wonder, at what point do we decide our blogs are in fact no longer our own and modify our behaviour to adjust to the audience demand? Do we do this unconsciously anyway.... how many times have you blogged on a topic and been disappointed or surprised at  the response? Has the audience reaction made you want blog more/or less about that topic? Do you blog on demand?

Some people see their blogs as a publication, perhaps to showcase their artistic or photography skills, others as having a specific agenda (e.g buy my stuff), some are wholly personal and up to the whims of the person blogging. Blogs are interesting to me when there is a full personality there, writing about topics that appeal precisely because of the context of an individual’s perspective. Sometimes I’m interested in how to roast great coffee, sometimes I want to share with others their sorrows and joys as well as my own, sometimes it’s all about learning a new CSS technique.

I don’t think there’s any one way to blog, nor is there a right way. I think that reading blogs is a bit like T.V. in that if you don’t find what you want on someone’s blog, chances are pretty good you can change the virtual channel and find something that suits you better.

I chose to blog about certain things for a reason, and if zero, ten, or ten thousand people read or stopped reading, it wouldn’t matter. I’d blog to an empty house or a full one. For me, blogging is an outlet, my personal  cathartic as you will. My desire to please people suggests, at times, that maybe I should let my audience drive my content. And sure I will occasionally blog on a certain topic because I know it's of interest to a contact or I want to push some buttons, but at the end of the day my instinct demands that I stay true to what and who I am, not what others want.

So I'm turning the soapbox over to you....
Why do you blog or not blog?