Blogging With Integrity

This topic has been on my mind lately and what better to celebrate my 100th post than a little rant? I'm no expert, just opinionated.

I didn't get into the whole internet thing until 2008 when I got my first boring office job.  I read a small handful of big name blogs (like 3? Maybe?) and obsessively checked them throughout the day.  I found a few sites I liked through links on the New York Times and NPR but other than sources that already interested me in Real Life, I didn't know how to find interesting content online.  Which was really frustrating.  My husband was getting hours of free entertainment from The Internet and I was struggling to make it through a single work day.

I'm not sure when the turning point occurred, or even what the key to discovering a community of blogs was but now I read A LOT of online publications.  I think it has to do with using a feed reader. I don't even have to remember the name of the blog anymore, I just add it to my feed reader and we're set.  Which has backfired on me. I now receive so much online content I don't have the energy/interest to consume it all.  Some days it feels like a chore.

It also seems to me that lately there has been a degradation in the quality of blogs now that everyone and their grandma has one.  I'm tired of corporate schilling on blogs.  I understand that many writers make a living/earn a blogging wage through sponsorships but when I see a feed reader full of posts that include the word 'Giveaway', I mark all as read and go back to my knitting.  At some point, it also became normal for bloggers to post a bunch of a links and call it good.  Lame sauce.  Curating a bunch of links is like saying "Look how good I am at using the internet!"  It has its place, that's for sure, but when it's rampant, it seems so lazy.  I am guilty of this but throwing up a cell phone picture and a couple snarky/emo sentences shouldn't be standard blog fare.  Quality over quantity!  And I will ceaselessly defend lurking on a blog because 90% of the comments I read are either a) stupid b) repetitive or c) promoting their own blog or all three. Also, it's a blog, not a diary.  I occasionally feel pressure to produce content that reports my daily activities and thoughts.  I still don't know what I'm doing here but I don't want it to be that.

And that's what I think of that.

< / rant >