Saturday, October 15, 2011

Blogs

Apparently 95% of them are shut down within 120 days, and go through the same cycle:
1) Euphoric moment of inspiration
2) Pseudo-maniacal and self-indulgent perusing of domains
3) Careful consideration of theme and design
4) The inaugural post - "Hello world!"
5) The 2-4 post honeymoon phase
6) Waning and changing interests
7) Feelings of desperation and apathy from low engagement
8) Inevitable abandonment 
We all have scores of friends who have started blogs, claimed they didn't care about an audience, and then lost interest after finding nobody was interested in reading it.  Few have both the compulsion to express themselves and the arrogance to think others might find it interesting.  And of course, that doesn't automatically make whatever they do "good." Coming up on my 15,000th post I include myself in that group, less because I consider myself to be a "writer" and more because of a "look at me!" mannerism that probably is closer to being a sickness.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I know I wouldn't visit nearly as often if it weren't for my lone compulsion: Googling the phrase "squirrel fisting" at least twenty times a day.

Xmastime said...

its called "knowing your audience" ;)

Jack said...

I'm glad you've stuck it out, Xmas. I found your blog via a link from Sullivan a few months ago, and I was instantly hooked. It's hard to find good writing, and even harder to find reliably *funny* prose. And you are both reliably good and reliably funny. Thanks for all the chuckles.

Xmastime said...

thanks for reading! :)