Is blogging officially dead? Some of the most notorious bloggers keep deserting their online platforms migrating – they say – towards new, more rewarding projects.
Blogging has lost its shine and magic – do we need to refocus our blogging energy on something else? A ton of question arise after each blog left behind. The last dinosaurs… ahem bloggers – how do you find the motivation to keep on blogging and what pushes others away from the once-so-addictive blogging activity? I will talk about the three main reasons why blogging is dying. Let me know what you think and if you have an opinion, do speak up, I’d love to hear more about this!
I know this started out as a question about all the fashion bloggers who seem to pull out of blogging, deserting their once favorite social media platform, however, it can be easily extended to all domains, not just fashion. Blogging, in general, seems to be plagued… why?
Read also: Our world is changing, one image at the time!
Evolution
One (easy) answer would be: bloggers (eventually) grow up. Grow out of blogging as well. Eventually they consume this ‘reality show’ stage of their lives and move on to more pressing matters: existential or professional (starting a family or pursuing another career).
Some have tried to diversify at some point, bring in new material, new contributors, new perspectives but they all wear off in the end if the heart is gravitating to another planet of interest.
There’s also the reverse of evolution, if I may call it this way – while some bloggers have turned pro (became regular journalists), pro journalists have become bloggers by taking up personal pages and thus taking their followers even closer, exploring more in-depth the topics of their interest in a more conversational manner.
Do you know that: Media is using our insecurities to keep us from being ourselves?
Corporate Life
Another (easy) answer would be that big corporations have seen the potential in getting closer to popular bloggers. Their new perspective, their creative energy and especially their loyal following have thickened the rows of corporate customers (by corporate I understand big magazines, big fashion outlets, big brands eating the little fish in the pond).
In the beginning they were scared of bloggers, even desperate to contain the new blogging virus threat but the smartest corporations understood that it was better to go with the flow rather than fight against the new army of bloggers…
Corporate got its traffic back, even more, but bloggers lost their precious independence by joining an ‘Umbrella’ corporation. Eventually, it all gets depersonalized and the once intimate, familiar nature of blog posts has transitioned into an impersonal, distanced discourse inflicted with thesis powers. Our once blogger-friends have turned into dictators who write about a lot of ‘should’ and ‘must’…
Exhaustion
At the end of the day, a blogger has to have all his/hers checklists done. All social media accounts updated, all questions answered, all comments addressed to, all emails sent. Now every new blogger who loved the old-school, personal interaction with the readers must take it all on Twitter.
And as direct as Twitter may be, it has that serious downfall of word-limitation but no speed-limitation. The fastest twitters are now the best bloggers. Yet they’re hybrids of the old school bloggers who bet it all on pacing, on familiarity and closeness. You don’t have time for that on Twitter – everything is consumed within minutes, hours at most.
As I used to say: blogging (as any other work-from-home engagements) has a very important pro and con at the same time. You can enter the office at any moment of the day and take a break without anyone asking why and for how long. The con? You’re never really out of office. Ever. Not even when you sip on your coffee or walk your dog, dress up or wake up.. You’re always connected, always required to update, to react, to interact.
This brings huge amounts of stress and the tension gets so high at some point that many bloggers (regardless of their domain) give up or take significant breaks just to find a normal pace and take the pressure off.
I pulled out of Facebook’s fast lane and although I appreciate the immediateness of Twitter, I cannot, for the life of me, transform my old school blogger into a twitter-blogger. I love interacting, taking my conversation to a personal level, but when things get taken out of context so much, so fast, so mercilessly, I beg to differ and remain old school. Good, bad? I would love to discuss that with you, the way we used to!
8 comments
In my experience it is happening more in the fashion/ personal style blogging.
2 of my favorite fashion related blogs closed doors recently, both bloggers burned out by the constant scrutiny. At some point, they had to police themselves so harshly because every single post was object of criticism. Not the kind of “constructive” criticism, just plain b!tchery. I see that it happened here too. Just another day I was wondering how do you deal with that, because at the end of the day, it is YOUR “house” and guests should behave accordingly. Perhaps I am too old fashioned ?
In other spheres like politics, decor, architecture, arts, cooking I see the thing is still strong but I admit my experience is quite limited.
I cant stand Twitter, really. It is one of the most stupid inventions of the century but very in accordance with the stupidity of our society.
2) oh my comment is waiting moderation…. why that ?
I just read today : ” Twitter changed. It went from somewhere you could happily exchange civilised views to a place dominated by trolls and trollops intent only on unpleasantness or self-promotion. Hence the rise of glorified nonentities such as Kim Kardashian and other vacuous wannabes joining a spiral of attention-seeking vulgarity. Ms Kardashian’s 42 million Twitter followers are not logging in for her wit, I assure you.” I couldn’t agree more. It was wrote by Sarah Vine, that despicable woman in the Daily Mail and now I feel bad because I agree with a right winger :-(.
Go figure…
(it was under moderation because the comments have an automatic ‘decency’ filter and there was one particular word you used that triggered the filter – you can see I’ve edited a letter in your first comment)
Thank you for opening the discussion! It really is a topic bugging me for some time now. Yes, as you may have noticed, ideas and stories have been taken out of context here as well. It was deeply hurting and very confusing as I (still) think of my readers as my friends. I still think people don’t come across my stories by accident and that we’re drawn together because we have some kind of common interests.
And when those common grounds are questioned and fought against, I feel disoriented and can’t help but wonder not about the state of my ‘home’ but about the state of the world, about humans in general.
I’ve been accused of many things that never occur to me they’d ever become a problem, a barrier in communicating with my friends. People change. I changed. I grew a lot. I evolved. I imagine everyone did. But we – the old-school-ers – seem to be outnumbered by the shallow many. The fast lane only has time to appreciate the surface but not to go beyond the skin deep of our social lives. Hence ‘personalities’ such as Kim Kardashian get to overshine people who matter most. Who make a real difference in the world.
Fashion bloggers have been eaten alive by the giants they once were so proudly voicing against. Did they make a real difference and changed anything in the ‘giants’ way of acting of doing the (fashion) things? I didn’t notice a substantial change in Fashion Magazines nor did I notice a veritable change in the Giant Fashion Boutiques modus operandi. Old schoolers quitting blogging feels like we’re losing something real. Something that could’ve make a difference. Something human in all this ‘industry’.
Are we too fast-forwarding? Fast food, fast fashion, fast learning, fast thinking, fast reading, fast reacting… We’re running out of time because we choose to. Because we’re running out of patience. Let’s slow down a bit. Let’s breathe and allow ourselves to be late. I’m late on Twitter. on Facebook, on Instagram and everything else. I’m late in buying the latest trends, in reading the latest newsfeed. (although my heart is still bleeding because of what’s going on and for updates I did rely 100% on Twitter and news outlets).
…maybe I should write something about this too fast thingie…?
Ops, sorry for that sweetie, and for the occasional misspelling /grammatical /syntax mistake. I was under Ambien effect when I wrote it.
I will be back later, just want to let you know I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Don’t worry Theodora! I was deeply lacking my caffeine fix, so we were definitely in the same boat! Come back whenever you feel like it, I’ll be right here ;-)
The info overload has made it all too boring – unfortunately because I personally have enjoyed many blogs over the years. I am turning off to the www & going back to more tactile living!
Maybe one should just blog for themselves 😊 Enjoy!
Hello! Friend!
As you noticed, I went off line (online life ) last june 2015! Wouw time flies!
I think We don’t take time anymore of reading some thing longer than 144 words. :-)
When you want to live you life, you need to disconnect social medias ! read blogs you like like this one. As old school I am and still will be.
Bisous bisous de Bruxelles!
Oh, quelle surprise! Merci Dhyana! Happy to read you, happier even to learn you’re good and taking time to enjoy life as is! I hope your Angels are alright and that, no matter how near or far, you’ll always be happy!
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