Of all the things I'm confident I can do (not many), writing is by far the oldest. I came into the blogging scene relatively late though (2009) and, frankly, it was a poor representation of what I could write. Dig up this site's old archives and you'll get what I mean.
Actually, no, please don't. It's terribly embarrassing.
While blogging is on the surface just an extension of a person's writing skills, it's actually different in many ways. Of course, you've got the obvious stuff, such as the need of using media (pictures, embedded videos, etc), finding ways to make your site stand out visually, and all the maintenance shizz.
But a subtler and more important distinction between blogging and general writing is the way you write. Let's take a feature article for example. The feature will get written up by the prominent writer who has been at the publication for five years, who has spent several weeks researching the topic, interviewing people and visiting relevant places. After which, it'll be sent to his or her editor where some chim words will be thrown out or readers would scratch their head in bewilderment, and finally it'll be published in one of the first few pages of the publication next to the writer's smiling or serious-looking 48x48 sized picture. And people will marvel at how thoughful and thorough the piece is, and at all the chim words that the editor didn't filter out.
Contrast that to a large majority of blogs, and their bloggers. Write. Pull relevant media. Publish.
For all the convenience that brings, there's a sad expense as well. For the feature article, the writer has to go through several loops to get the article published, but he/she can rest assured that once it does, people will read it, chim words and all. The blogger, however, doesn't have that guarantee. As such, he/she must proactively find ways to get people to read.
On an internet with far too much fluff and far too little time filter it, this has side effects on the writing. Many bloggers, desperate for clicks, resort to link-baiting headlines that attract eyeballs to them, content that is often written-up as fast as possible and language that stir emotions. While some established publications, tabloids in particular, also do this, it is no more true anywhere else than in the world of blogging.
I had an argument once about this. A friend and I were both working together to serve content for an online page. He purposefully wrote headlines and phrases in the way I talked about above - not because he wasn't capable of writing deep content, mind you, but he chose to do it that way. I didn't agree with the approach, and called it out. In the end, though, I had to agree on the point that it was the most effective way of gaining readership.
Because, sadly, most people are like that. We are attracted instinctively to things that provoke us, both emotionally and principally. That's why link bait works. That's why loaded language works. However, I didn't believe it was the only way to do things.
That's why, from the early days of Suburban KID, I have tried hard not to sacrifice quality. It doesn't mean that I can serve up the best content - I am an amateur writer in the end, after all - but it means that it is the top priority, irregardless of whatever benefits that may come through putting anything else (being the fastest, the easiest to read, etc) in priority. Call me an idealist, but I didn't - and still don't - believe that just because you're a no-name blogger working on a no-name blog, you can't put quality above everything else. It is why my personal working motto, and the de facto motto of this site is still a quote that I came up with one or two years ago: "You don't have to be a professional to work like one."
Idealist as I may be, I am realistic about what this approach means. It means that the word "niche" will probably forever be attached to Suburban KID. It means that whatever we do, however hard our team works, we will a*probably* never gain the recognition of the big boys.
Sounds depressing, but I think that's okay. I think all three of us that have a hand in the site already know this truth anyway. Besides, I'm modestly proud of how we've grown. Not in terms of the usual page views metric (although we have definitely grown a lot there) but in the little community of readers. Heck, in Suburban KID's first year, the number of active readers/followers could be counted off one hand. Now, both hands aren't enough to count our active commenters.
So yes, we're still small. But I enjoy what we do, and as far as I can tell, so do our readers. I'll talk more about our future direction on our anniversary - a long way off! - but our approach to doing stuff won't change.
Besides, if we did grow much bigger, I wouldn't have time to write little pieces like this anyway. So there is that!
3 comments :
nice little rant. ^^
It would be, had I actually ranted. But I wasn't mad or anything.
no, of course not. :P
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