Today is so-called Blogroll Amnesty Day, spearheaded by Jon Swift and skippy, wherein participants are supposed to extol and publicize those bloggers who don't get a lot of attention, aren't on the A-list, have very low hit counts, and in general ought to be better known. So I'm thinking, how many of the people currently on my blogroll, particularly on the political end, get lower hit counts than me? And as I checked my Site Meter and other stats, I realized: probably none. And then I immediately acknowledged, it's my own damn fault.I've been blogging for over five years, but less and less of late. Sometimes I barely make one post per day. I don't know that I've done much more than Silly Sites, Friday Cat Blogging and blogaround link posts for maybe three months now. And my stats show it. I used to get around 200 daily hits; now it's down to maybe 80 if I'm lucky. And it's directly related to how much effort I put into writing here.
Comic book fans don't read Pen-Elayne regularly, because I don't write about comic books any more; I haven't been able to properly write about them since I used to keep up with my reading back when my job was in Manhattan and I went to the shop each Wednesday like other "early adopter" fans. The biggest comic-related thing I've ever done here was publish Robin's whistleblowing on CrossGen, and I think that day I got maybe 500 hits. Compared with Newsarama and The Beat, that's nothing. Besides, nowadays most of my comics-related stuff gets written for ComicMix.
My political friends, even the locals who used to invite me to NY blogger gatherings, have pretty much deserted me. Some probably kept me at arm's length to begin with, as I never seemed to toe whatever they considered to be the party line from moment to moment. I don't get that much pleasure out of demonizing anyone, for instance, even if their politics are diametrically opposed to my own. I refuse to consider most people as inherently evil for believing differently than I do. I'm used to most of the folks around me having opinions that diverge from my own, whether it's about cooking or comics or Congress. But at one party I distinctly remember, when I didn't agree with some point or other that was raised, the sudden accusation, "You're a Republican!" Coming from a family of lifelong Democrats I was kind of floored by that reaction, but by and by found it indicative of a lot of the echo-chamber mentality so prevalent in political bloggers of all stripes. Which makes it all the more ironic when these same liberal blogs delight in accusing right-wing blogs of being "the mighty Wurlitzer."
Then too, there's my outspoken opposition to the obsession many bloggers have with making money from their hobby. And yes, I'm aware many people don't see blogging as a hobby, or even a public service or civic duty, but I'm afraid that's my personal prejudice that I'm hard-pressed to shake. I know wanting to see a profit from your creative efforts is as legitimate a hope as having a political candidate who shares every single one of your values. It's just as unlikely to happen. There are tons of really good writers out there, and there's little incentive to pay for content in one place that you can get for free elsewhere. But some liberal bloggers can't see beyond their own overinflated sense of entitlement. And so they hold these periodic fundraisers to rake in money to pay for their blogging. I already have a computer with an internet connection, and I've never paid one additional penny to blog; I don't see why anyone should expect a handout for something which nobody's forcing them to do and which they can do for free. Sure enough, the great majority of these fundraisers are for people who already make a perfectly good living and honestly don't need the money as much as want it. And when I point this out, as I have time and again, I'm a killjoy, a traitor, a Republican.
So I'm kind of the rebel. I don't stick to one topic; I'm neither a political nor a comics blogger, neither a photoblogger nor a food blogger, neither a religion blogger nor a cat blogger. I'm just Elayne. And I don't stick to the pre-approved script; when bloggers go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Amsterdam, I'm the one who points out at what price they've been bought. When all-white bloggers brag about lunching with Bill Clinton in largely-black Harlem, I'm one of those wondering what happened to all the non-white bloggers, and making good on a promise to never again link to A-list liberal blogs that attack others who question this status-quo (blogs that also, not coincidentally, used blackface as humor). I don't demand readers pay for my hobby, and I'm not shy about mentioning repeatedly how wrong I think that is. And I don't like to echo what everyone else has already said.
Which is one of my main problems. If I'm not a bandwagon jumper, I'm not as noticed. But in my effort not to make that leap, I tend to wait until I've finished reading other blogs before opining about something, so as not to duplicate effort. And with one thing and another I often find myself with too many unread blogs at any one time to venture forth with my own blather. And that's wrong; I should never have to feel the need to wait until I've read what others have said about something to put in my own two cents. From this day forth, my promise to readers and to myself is to try and write more before reading. It's always better to go back to a post and add an update and link to what others have said about a topic than it is never to have written about it at all.
I'm going to write more this year. And it's not just going to be diary-type posts either. I'm engaged enough with the outside world in my offline life; you'll start to see that reflected more here at Pen-Elayne. Then when I wonder why I'm not on the blogrolls of writers I admire, or why my comments sections are so blank, I'll have more legitimate ground on which to stand. I want to again make Pen-Elayne a more attractive must-read blog for all of you.
Once again, if you still have me on your blogroll and don't see your name on my sidebar, or if you want to reciprocate blogrolling, please let me know ASAP; I would always like to blogroll anyone who blogrolls me (within reason). In the meantime, instead of hyping bloggers who doubtless all get more hits than I do by this point, I'm going to link to the three blogs remaining in the Guys in Waiting section of my Bloglines subs, guys whose blogs I like but who haven't blogrolled me, in the hopes that they someday will: Driftglass, Flawed Plan of Writhe Safely, and R.J. Eskow of Night Light. And I'm going to start working on becoming worthy of being blogrolled again.
Update: Thank you, Susie and Scott!
0 comments:
Post a Comment