Blogs and Bloggers

Thought Number One:  Blog, Blog, Blog

Have you noticed the proliferation of the use of the word “blog”, lately?  Whether you write a blog, read blogs or just have had your ears bombarded hourly by the word blog…there seems to be a substantial increase in the use of the term. What started off as a means for people to create a weblog has become a huge presence that straddles the lines of  various categories such as social networking, journalism, e-commerce,  and news.

Recently, I  have noticed that just about every TV show, has worked a blogger or blog  into it’s story line. Even the commercials are using ”blogging” as a theme.  What is interesting about some of the stories/series/commercials is that the writers clearly has no knowledge of  what a real blog does or doesn’t do.

Example Number One

On the Big C, a Showtime series, one of the main characters, Paul, starts a blog after a “near death” experience.  He thinks he needs to share his story with the world as he has survived a heart attack and has come back from the dead. So he starts a blog and clues his readers into the fact that his wife, Kathy, had an affair. How she made it into the blog, they don’t say…perhaps Paul is blaming her for his stress..dunno. Cut to the next scene: Now the whole town, including her employer, the public school system, is aware of her indiscretions.

And if that wasn’t enough, a (supposedly) famous motivational speaker named Joy (played by Susan Sarandon) is so taken by his skill as storyteller because of his excellent writing abilities evidenced by his blog,  she has asked him to tour with her.  She assures him that he is soon to be rich and famous.

Example Number Two

On Revenge there has been a murder that is being blamed on the good looking rich kid, Daniel Grayson. The plot line of Revenge is so convoluted and complex, I wouldn’t be able to catch you up in less that 1000 posts but in the nutshell, the family persuades a semi-famous writer to start a blog casting doubt on Daniel’s guilt and hinting that a girl that was in the area at the time of the murder, Amanda Clark is the dirty deed doer.  So now this blog is going crazy with followers and everyone is trying to find clues to who really committed the murder. AND the semi-famous writer guy is now a key witness for the defense because surely he is an expert on the case…he did, after all, start a blog. 

Another aspect to this story line was the fact that the Graysons  hired an assistant to create the web site as the hapless writer said he didn’t know how to start a blog.  OK, maybe…but then the assistant started talking about some techy mumbo jumbo that was lost on me…of the things she would have to do to get a blog launched.

Thought Number Two…Starting a Blog Isn’t the Hard Part

While no one can really calculate the number of blogs currently active, most sources believe there are more than 100 million of them.  It just can’t be all that difficult if over 100 MILLION people have figured it out.   The sure-fire proof would be that I have one and if it was really a difficult thing to do….I wouldn’t have done it. 
Here are a couple of  my thoughts on starting and having a blog.

A. Anyone that feels the need to start one can.  You can go to any number of sites such as Blogger or WordPress and it will step you through the process. In minutes you will be pushing the publish button.

B.  The odds of the entire town reading your blog and following you the first day are very low….probably nonexistent..unless you are some notorious character in your town. If you already have the whole town looking at you maybe you would be successful right out of the gate.

C.  I noticed on several shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Two Broke Girls there were mentions of people quitting their jobs to become professional bloggers.  To that I say DON’T….don’t go quitting a paying job to start a blog…well…unless someone offers to pay you to do it.  Oh sure, people are making money with blogs but it’s not instantaneously and usually not lucrative enough to replace a REAL job.  (there are exceptions to this of course!)

So to the bloggers out there….why did you start your blog???  Just for fun, love of writing, sharing an interest, surely not as in the show Revenge…tracking down the murderer????

And to the non-bloggers…have you ever considered starting a blog about one of your interests or some viewpoint that you want to share?  Or does the idea of having a blog not appeal to you at all?

OK…maybe it is a two man/woman job.  I guess I had better go update my Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

Read more at The Art of Being Conflicted