PhotoDude.com

Tue. Oct 05, 2004

It's Not About You

The weekend after “RatherGate” broke, after soaking in the various blogs absolutely fixed on the topic, I wrote, “I see the first symptoms of an infection of self-importance. Of destructive obsession.”

I got pooh-poohed a bit for saying that in the comments. But apparently you can see it even from within the partisan swirl. Michele at A Small Victory is fervently pro-Bush (or anti-Kerry, I never can tell the difference) but she’s been set to wondering, too.

I’m sensing a sea change in blogging, courtesy of RatherGate. Suddenly, blogging is in the Era of the Scoop. Everyone wants to break a story, everyone wants the Drudge link, everyone wants to Make A Difference.

I wasn’t really part of RatherGate (I was on hiatus when the story broke). I just reposted links and threw my personal opinion in the mix, so I’m not crying about being left off that bandwagon. I never made the attempt to really hook myself onto it. But as I watch that bandwagon roll on without me, I wonder what it’s taking with it.

As other’s stats have risen, mine have dropped. I get less comments, less repeat visits, less emails. If the face of blogging has changed in the last month, then I’m still wearing the old face. And for that, I’m struggling to even make the relatively inexpensive price I charge for ads justifiable.

With the adrenaline of Rathergate still in their veins, they are making a heady, if understandable, attempt to keep the sugar rush going and I don’t think they are being very careful about what they are consuming in the process.

Not being very careful about what they’re consuming? You’re just noticing that trend on the web?

I’ve never met Michele, but I’ve been reading her since not long after she started blogging over three years ago. And therefore, I find her reaction as instructive as what she’s reacting to. Because she’s been “inside the swirl.” All year long, this has been going on.

How do I know? I’ve been outside the swirl. Which is, frankly, just fine with me. I don’t get linked from red sites or blue sites because, well, I’m grey. The traffic flow at my site has been changed significantly by this partisan trend all year long. Because Michele’s right, er, correct (well, both). Red links red, and blue links blue. It causes two vast expressways of traffic, and if you hop on board one of them, it’s nearly self-perpetuating. Off of those two expressways, it’s fairly quiet.

Michele continues, “Sour grapes? Perhaps. In the age of Wonkette and $500 a month blogads, maybe I’m just chewing on a bit of jealousy.”

“Outside the swirl,” we don’t worry about whether we can justify the price we’re charging for our ads, or how much others are getting for theirs. Because we don’t have any paid ads at all. Sites that aren’t clearly red or blue haven’t been getting the ad dollars. Sort of like back when you started, Michele. Nobody did this to get paid. Nobody did it to be the next kottke heather ev zeldman lileks sullivan instapundit atrios Wonkette.

Everybody did it to be themselves. And to be able to express themselves, in any way they desired. When they first developed an audience, and became “aware” of it, it didn’t change things, it merely added a layer of satisfaction. But it can quickly become an intruding yardstick: “It’s funny that it used to be the variety of subjects here that attracted my readers. Someone said to me yesterday that that same variety is probably what’s driving them away now.”

I hate to be judgmental, but in this election year, if you cultivate a partisan audience, they come to expect red meat. If you then try to give them some interesting veggie burgers and point out the fun you can have with tofu … they leave in search of red meat.

It’s not about you. Unless you let it be.

This October is the most Red Meat Month of this century. Next month, we’ll have moved on to turkey. So you can serve up what you think the audience seems to want. Or you can be yourself.

Back to Michele: “No matter how negative I feel, I’ll keep writing here, anyhow, because I’m trying to rediscover what made this fun for me to begin with.”

Bingo! Give that Red Girl a Blue Star, just to watch her hyperventilate.

I can’t pretend to know what made it fun for Michele when she started, or exactly how she feels she lost her way since then. It’s easy to blame it on the dramatic events during that time, or the partisan tenor of today. And while that’s part of it, because our environment surely changes us … it’s still us.

I can only say this much. That initial “rush” you get from self-publication on the web, that sense of self satisfaction, is something you have to maintain a long time. Internal satisfaction. Because that “rush” can easily be exceeded by the external one you get when you find an audience who actually seems to enjoy your thoughts/silliness. The danger is that they become your satisfaction. Your reason for doing it.

It is indeed a fine line. I’m always aware of you. I always write to you. But I don’t pretend to “know” who you are, or how I can please you every day. I know who I am, and how to at least try to please myself every day.

And that has to be enough. For both of us.

Because if it becomes all about you (or even 51%), well, eventually, I’m going to want to get paid for doing this, and then I’ll be worrying about how my comrades/competitors are doing by comparison. And how will I find my next “scoop,” or Big Traffic Pumper?

And then it will be no fun at all.