Blogging is dead

Cartoon from Userfriedly.org.

So today is my third blog-versary. No need to toot any horns just props to my readers and my fellow bloggers. Without you I most likely wouldn't have done this for so long.

So whats with the title? Well I was kind of paying homage to Nas' Hip Hop is Dead but its also rather the way I've been feeling about the blogging world lately. And yea maybe it is me, been feeling more jdid than usual of late but I also realized, after finding a blog from last year, that I've probably been having issues with the blog world for a while. Might be the price of longevity.

Seems to me though that in general its like the energy has dissipated and the uniqueness of the blogging concept has worn off somewhat. When I got into the game it seemed like blogging was a cool concept and the 'hip' thing to do, there was a newness, a freshness, an eye-opening motif. Can we really say the same anymore or has blogging been replaced by Myspace and Facebook as the attention getters?

Cause lets face it, the average blogger is in this for some attention or to chronicle his life. Ok that's not entirely true. The average blogger can also be in it cause he/she has or thinks he/she has something to say. Why blog if no-one reads? See me, check what I have to say, what I'm saying is important, my life, my thoughts, my experiences are important and worth sharing. Isn't that one of the main point of blogging? Well maybe we don't think in such fundamental terms when we say I'm going to start a blog but think about it.

Ok, so when I say that the average blogger is seeking attention it sounds kind of like some shameless publicity seeking and that might be part of blogging or a major reason some folks blog but its not the end all or be all of blogging.

Oh and I do know that the world would disagree with me on blogging being dead since it seems like blogging is more on the rise lately what with all these influential, scene stealing, news breaking, insider political blogs around and even talk of bloggers forming their own union. Blogging has progressed, become more professional, blogging has evolved. Hell maybe those cats do need their own union.

But I'm dealing with the average everyday blogger, the guy that doesn't have what I term a niche blog. He's got some opinions, but they're not really organized, they are not all directed at one issue, they are all over the spectrum and his political thoughts may not neatly fit into the general stances of the major parties. He represent the everyman, the hoi pollio, the masses. He maybe gets like 3 regular comments and 10 readers but he still comes through on the regular. He's a B-lister, a C-lister, a D-lister even, that's the guy I'm talking with. The guy whose blog may evolve to become an A-lister, to be one of the big boys or it might not. And I think that somewhere along the line something's being lost in some of these guys' blogs. The thrill is gone.

Don't get me wrong this isn't me signing off, although I've been considering it, this is just well some thoughts on blogging.

Anyways back to the point. The successful blogs now are more niche oriented in my opinion. Seems to be the general way to go to survive. The random post business, the my life is interesting, this is what happened yesterday business naa mek it. Well it does in some cases but a lot of cats have fallen to the wayside. Good naa make that great people and writers too.

Also many of the good cats aren't posting as regular. Maybe they have come to the realization that quality outweighs quantity in this business. Yea you want to strike that balance cause if you're too sporadic the readership will dip but at the same time you don't want to be wack. Or maybe the hustle on posts fell off when you realized that you were pushing out product faster than the readership could consume it. Maybe that's it.

But back in the day the readership couldn't get new stuff fast enough right? So maybe we have become stale or maybe the shine's off the new ball. After a while folks just realized that our lives or opinions, our thoughts weren't as interesting as they initially thought they were or maybe we became too predictable, became one trick ponies.

Don't get me wrong though I still love blogs especially when I can go to a site and see some obscure yet interesting incident that I didn't know had happened or some really unique perspective on some issue, or get some insight into someone's life or someone breaks down some fundamental tenet of life like a Amadeo or a Luke Cage does. Stuff that I'm not going to see in the mainstream media. Stuff that makes a good read and makes one think, or laugh or be curious or even be outraged cause no-one else deemed it worth a damn to mention. I mean to me that's the essence of blogging; unique ideas, unique lives (and every life is unique), unique perspectives.

So yea I'm a bit worried cause I see the mundane creeping up into this blogging thing with the quickness. Maybe its always been there though, maybe I'm just not noticing it more.

Alot of the old cats leave, and 'even though we know somehow we all gotta go' I'm personally missing cats like Dr D and Obi, and they haven't really articulated why they left not that there was an obligation to. Sometimes its time commitments, sometimes they lose the ever ongoing struggle that I'm so aware of of "whats the damn point to this blogging ish anyway?' and sometimes its something that they just cant put their finger on, some spidey sense tingling that says like Buju or Biggie 'Things change'.

But that's the cycle of life right? Seasons change mad things stay the same and alternatively mad things take on a different form.

There is more to say, stuff about conforming, stuff about not pandering to the readers etc but I'll leave it there while these thoughts swirl in my mind.

And if there was a point to this post it would probably be yea I know this blogging thing is informal and no one's expecting Pulitzer prize winning joints but at the same time be aware of the mundane. Lets try and keep this stuff fresh. I ain't saying you got to have outer space action adventures cause a lot of blogging deals with everyday actions. I'm just saying make it interesting, give us a reason to read, to smile, to be outraged, to be informed.

Oh and hopefully no one takes this as me saying that your life's chronicle is boring but hopefully maybe I made someone stop and think. now just take this post and run with it.

And like I said at the start big up to all my fellow current bloggers and much love to the fallen soldiers. I hope y'all come back, I miss y'all. Y'all is fam!

One!