The verb 'to blog' is over, I've just decided.
Admit it. You're annoyed that everyone you know who went travelling in the last two years enthusiastically and ungrammatically blogged the entire experience. You've started to unfriend people who post updates from their tiresome blog to their Facebook profile. Your own blog about cats doing funny things / the terrible customer service provided by your local council / Surrey fashion trends is failing miserably.
And, worst of all, you've grown tired of how people get 'blog' and 'post' mixed up ("I've just written a new blog about my holiday - check it out!").
Saying you've got a blog has started to sound like you're showing off about having a MySpace page. It just so... 2007. And anyone that ever uses the word 'blogosphere' needs to leave the internet immediately.
So, from now on, this is a site. And I don't blog, I write. And I don't write posts, I write articles. Who's with me?
Pic by markhillary.
9 comments:
I hear you but we're all on the curve somewhere.
Whilst I'm certain your tongue is firmly in your cheek, I thought I'd respond in a semi-serious way. I read your 'article' above and thought of how brands deal with over-exposure. Burberry had cache before getting it wrong and being adopted by teenage chavs as their brand of choice. When blogging went mainstream, the frustration you express became evident to every early adopter I'd suppose. Some tv shows are good, most are very bad. Some people's writing is good, most we're best ignoring. People will differentiate I'm sure without you making the distinction.
I'm in!
But you may want to check out your sidebar. 'Search this blog' 'Blog archive' 'About this blog' 'Follow this blog'. And isn't this 'site' powered by Blogger?
Arrrgh!
OK, fixed. Thanks Tac.
This is a crappy site. Stick with blog.
Thanks, Anonymous. It means a lot.
I wanted to leave a comment when I first read this, when I came back to it just now I realised Matt Lawton’s pretty much summed up what I wanted to say (first comment, above).
I used to be a journalist. Now I’m in PR. My NUJ card used to describe me as a writer, not a journalist. When I write it’s because I want to write and my platform for sharing the things I write is a blog. And while I have a blog, I don’t consider myself to be a blogger. But maybe that’s because I have my own views on what a blogger is – or should be.
The whole rose would smell as sweet by any other name thing applies in this argument, I believe.
I get more value out of some people who describe themselves as bloggers than certain well-known journalists. People who read your blarticles (can see what I did there..?) because they get value from them. I doubt they’ll care too much whether you brand your output as blog posts or articles.
Hi Sean, I think I came to the realisation that blogging was over for me when I heard myself say it, and it sounded naff.
A 'corporate blog' still has kudos because so few companies do it well. But now everyone is blogging there should be some delineation between that and the sites that take themselves more seriously (and have readerships to match).
I like the word 'blarticle'. So, from now on, I will be referring to this site as a 'blagazine'.
Ah John, you are suffering from post-blarticle stress syndrome. I had a similar attack several months ago, when my mind rebelled against making sure that my English blog site was relevant and readable.
My solution to this apparent Gordian knot was to devise an alternative publication, wherein I could indulge in a more erudite and extensive vocabulary and give free reign to verbal excesses on a cornucopia of personal interests and observations; Where sentences could be convoluted and the chosen font cheerfully confounded the reader through its illegibility!
I can thoroughly recommend the adoption of multiple personalities. That is of course whilst we are in agreement. Go forth and multiply - from blog to article to blarticle, from blagazine to periodical.
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