(Side note: this is part of my 31DBB Challenge- we’re supposed to write an opinion post. I’m way behind, but better late than never…{I want to win a free camera} So here’s my opinion. If you’re new, yes, this is a crafty blog, but I have something to say that has nothing to do with crafting- hope you like it!)
I have lots of friends in my “real world” (as opposed to my blog world) asking me about blogging in the last few weeks. It’s interesting to see the reaction people have to why a person blogs. As someone who became an avid blogger (via my family blog) and general internet nerd during my year leave of absence from teaching (ah, that was such a nice year), I can see how people who work full-time, or even part time, sometimes look at blogging as, well, rather strange. When you take a step back and look at what blogging is, it’s overwhelming. If I take too much time to think about hundreds of people hopefully/possibly reading about me, what I do, or what I think, it’s kind of crazy.
There seem to be lots of opinions out there, and most of them are strong. Here are some of the vibes I get from various people I have spoken to about blogging, and also my response to those opinions. No one has ever outright said these things to me- they are just vibes I pick up on from time to time.
“It’s dumb.” (or any other negative adjective you’d like to insert- stupid, useless, waste of time, etc.)
What I think: It’s not dumb. Perhaps if you find a blog you don’t relate to it might seem dumb or irrelevant, but it’s only irrelevant to you- it might be someone else’s inspiration.
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“You can’t really make a living blogging.”
What I think: Heh. Oh really? Oh reeeeallllly? Then why does Darren exist? Why does Dooce exist? You can make a living blogging. But it’s something you have to work your arse off doing. Is it a living you’d choose? Most likely not since you don’t think it’s possible. But hey- to each his/her own, I say. I’ve spent a lot of time on my blog this summer and hardly anyone is looking at it….yet. I hope that will change, but even if it doesn’t it will make me happy to leave a mark in this huge cyber-world. If it makes me happy, what do I have to lose?
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“You have too much time on your hands.”
What I think: Nope. I definitely don’t have too much time on my hands. I have two children, I hope to have a third in the near future, I’m going to be teaching in a few weeks, I’d like to workout on a regular basis, I have a house to organize and keep clean, and I also have this little thing called a relationship with my husband. I’ve got plenty to do. But I like blogging. So sue me.
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“You’re addicted to the internet and social media.”
What I think: Hell, yeah, I’m addicted to the internet and social media! I love it! If you don’t, more power to ya. I still get out of the house, I have a social life, I have friends (hi, friends!) and I think I’m doing okay balancing my life as best I can. But I love Facebook for the way it allows me to keep up with old friends and new, I love Twitter even though I have yet to fully grasp it, and I love blogging because without it I would never have found inspiration to start sewing and keep making stuff I like.
I’ve often seen comments on friend’s Facebook status that make fun of people who take the status update to an extreme. Sometimes, being the rather sensitive person I am, I’ve wondered if they are commenting about me (then I remember that I rarely post about going to the bathroom or what I just ate- unless I’m out to dinner and having something ridiculously delicious- then I share). But at the finish of this post I shall worry no longer. I’m going to own my blogging and social media loving self and live. it. up. I think it will be advantageous when my kids are older- when they are talking about the latest and greatest things on the internet I may actually know what they are talking about. And I will meet so many people on this journey of mine that I can’t possibly sit around and wonder if everyone approves or disapproves. It’s official: I don’t care.
What is blogging to me? It’s a way to record my journey and to share it with other people. It’s a way to reach out across the country and the world to say, “Hey! Check this out!” I have so many friends who blog not for the recognition but to just write, get their thoughts out, and have a place to reflect on their life. Blogging is the new form of a diary for so many people. It will track my children’s lives, it will track my learning process, it will keep me sane in many ways. I have so many things I think about- blogging is where I process and manipulate my brain.
So, what interesting comments have you received about the blogging world? Do you care what your friends/family/colleagues thing about your blog? Your interest in social media? I’d love to hear from you!
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Keep Up With the Crazy
About Natalie
Life is crazy. Craft it well. Thanks for stopping by Crafting Crazy! I'm stumbling into a new sort of life after leaving a 12-year teaching career. More of a practical crafter, I'm trying to temper the perfection a bit. If I mess up, I’ll be sure to share- then we can laugh together. Here you'll find anything I like that makes my life better or fun. Crafts, of course, but also posts about food, home decor, exercise... whatever I'm dabbling in at the moment. I'm so glad you're here- thanks for stopping by! Content Brewing!
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Love you, love your blogs!
I’ve had people tell me they don’t know where I find the time to blog, but, as you say, it’s a great way for me to keep a record of how my kids and I spent this time in our lives. It is a diary for me but better, because the fact that it is public helps me keep it more positive and more up-to-date. And I think my parents especially really appreciate being given a glimpse into their grandchildren’s day-to-day lives, since I’ll often write about things that I wouldn’t necessarily think to mention on the phone.
If I had the slightest inclination to be crafty, I’m sure I’d keep a blog about that too. I’m so glad you do.
I need to get my Blogging Mojo back……..
I have enjoyed the break but I am ready to dig in again ……..I love blogging for all the inspiring people you meet. My goal is to go to a Blogher or some type of blogging weekend …SOON!!
Hope you are having a good day!!
I blog because it gives me a creative outlet, a hobby and a way to escape for a little while each day. I don’t really get a lot of flack about my blog and I think this is partly due to my profession. As a librarian/ information professional there is an expectation that you are web 2.0 and social media savy. As a result, many of my real-world friends have blogs. I will say that most of them blog about librraianship and I have no interest in doing that!
I have been thinking about this topic lately. Especially since I read a post by an ex blogger in search of her former self. I don’t see it that way.
I blog to be heard. Plain and simple. I live 90% of my life with three kids under 5. So they are not fulfilling that need… %)
And I love writing. So, it gives a reason to do that. I don’t want to write a book. So this is the “perfect” solution.
hi nat! i LOVE your blog – keep it up! just think how nice it will be, in the future, to be able to look back and see (or show a future generation) all the creative crafty things you accomplished. who cares if people don’t understand the blogging part of it. who cares even if you DO decide to blog about going to the bathroom or about what you just ate. that’s what’s great about blogs – nobody is forcing anyone else to read it so i say just continue posting what you want as long as you enjoy it. and those who enjoy reading it will continue to do so! . . .
as for my own blogging, i have a love-hate relationship with it. i started blogging around 2001/2002 because my friends are all geeks and it was the “new/cool” thing to do. i was REALLY into it. i attended stuff like this. (there are links to my friend’s blog and my old blog (now taken down) in that first “blogs and press” part of the article. it made the world seem smaller and larger at the same time. it was a good learning experience. some blog friends became friends in real life. but as a person who doesn’t USUALLY like to share a lot of personal thoughts and experiences publicly, my blog entries are pretty boring. . .
i sort of have the same feeling about all the social media stuff out there… i love-hate it. when it comes to the social-networking stuff: i’m not afraid to use it, i’m glad it’s out there, i don’t trust it completely (doesn’t help that facebook privacy settings seem to change like every other week), i have fun with it, but i am also very happy to turn it all off and just go off-the-grid for awhile too. i’ll use social-networking sites to my advantage but i try not to let them use me. i never use my real name or email so i don’t get a lot of spam, i use ad-block so i don’t have to see any ads, i don’t feel any obligation to make a lot of connections, and i will say that social-networking (in this case it was myspace) DID help me track down a relative one time when i was really important that i find them. so i guess that’s a big plus for social networking sites. . .
as for other forms of social media (like news sites, forums, video-sharing, user-review sites for products/places/services, etc.) i really can’t imagine life without those now. but then once in a while i have to remind myself that: 1) people survived without the internet for years and 2) one can’t trust everything one reads/hears/sees/MEETS on the internet – although you are one of the lucky ones when it comes to the meeting part! =) i guess you could say that i have mixed feelings about social media and technology in general. i’m glad i’m pretty comfortable with it, i can’t seem to completely do without it, but i don’t want to totally trust/rely on it either. plus it’s always changing so i don’t ever want to get too attached to it in its current state. let’s just say that, for now, i’m having fun watching it evolve and change. and having fun observing how it’s changing people and society, me and you included. how’s that? probably sort of a longer comment/reply than you wanted to read, eh?
hey there nat,
i just read your awesome new blog post (cool welcome sign project!) and now i’m just revisiting this post to see if any other people posted comments on why they blog. you know when you first mentioned the 31 days thing i thought it was just that you were going to do 31 days of blogging without skipping a day or something like that. after reading your latest blog entry though, and after re-reading your blog post here more carefully, i see now that you are really trying to drum up some crazy website traffic and maybe monetize your blog in the future(?)…
well the philosophies behind your blog and my current blog are quite different. but in the early days of blogging i was right there with ya in trying to increase my web-site traffic. i was stoked to be linked (one time but still!) in the same paragraph as the likes of boingboing and slashdot, super excited when my blog was linked by tony pierce and other big-name bloggers, wagering with friends (and hubby) as to which of us would be ranked higher on technorati by the end of each day (i think technorati ranking meant something slightly different back then but i’m not sure – will have to look that up?), etc. while the blogging wouldn’t be considered new (i said something about “new/cool” thing), i guess some would say it’s cooler than ever with all those widget/buttons options making it possible to link one’s blog to facebook/twitter/etc. i remember when facebook was starting to get really popular with my peers several years ago… back then i called it a blog-killer since a lot of blogging friends decided it’d be easier to just write a facebook update here and there rather than a blog entry. and i missed reading their blog entries…
nowadays all i use my blog for IS to basically archive my facebook entries. i am definitely one of those people you mention who does NOT blog for recognition. my blog sort of reads like a twitter feed now without my having to use twitter (nothing against it, just not into it). and i still get comments on my entries in facebook even though in my blog i’ve turned the comment option off (word press has good search and archive options where facebook does not – facebook has some comment privatization features i like to use rather than enabling comments on my blog). i just use them both to my advantage! in any case, your enthusiasm for blogging is very contagious and, while i have my own particular reasons for not using my real name/email online, nor wanting google to index my site, i am excited for you and hope you get what you want for your blog. if what you want is a lot of blog traffic and to eventually earn money on your site, then i say that’s fantastic. remember that i loved your site even before you set out to make it better… i thought it was just fine the way it was (after all it’s all about the content in my book!) and, honestly, i sort of like the previous design better but that’s because i’m a minimalist when it comes to design and it’s not so easy being minimalist when one wants to use a lot of widget buttons! i still like your design now but, just by the nature of not having so many widgets and colors, your old site design was more in line with my aesthetic tastes. by the way, interesting idea to put your eyes in the header… just curious but what was the motivation behind that?…
you know when it comes to blogging, i think i’m kind of backwards compared to most of your blog friends (and yes i agree with you that you have some really creative blog friends – i’ve enjoyed browsing some of their sites!). most of you have something you are really amazing at (being a great mom, crafter, sewer, being a great photographer – or, in your case, all of the above) so you started blogging as a way of sharing and archiving your work and networking. and a lot of you are now trying to learn more tactics to tackle the more technological aspects of blogging. the reason i think i’m backwards is because i started blogging first BECAUSE the technology was there (just to experiment with something that was sorta new at the time). the technology part doesn’t bother me at all (always the internet to help me figure out any of the techie things i don’t quite grasp), i had no trouble getting a lot of web traffic to my old site at first, but after one gets tired of blogging about blogging, what is one supposed to do when one (me) has no special skills to share? no ideas or motivation for a “niche blog”, if you will? for a while i just blogged about everyday stuff. one time when my diabetic cat went into insulin shock i blogged about what to do, step-by-step, in the case of a feline insulin shock emergency. i blogged about it for my own records (actually referring to it a few years later when it happened again) but for a while that blog entry was the number one google search result for “feline insulin shock”. by the time i took my site down though, there were a lot more appropriate and thorough websites for the care of a cat during insulin shock. there are a lot more websites out there that are better than me at explaining pretty much ANYTHING. which is why i guess i do love the internet (and social media) most of the time…
so i’m sorry that i can’t give you a lot more web traffic by linking you to my website (i did link but the links sidebar is basically a bookmarks bar for myself and sometimes S) but i hope you liked the in-depth comments. while i have my reasons for not using my real name online, i must say that i do leave comments on blogs that i have enjoyed reading (especially more during the summer when i have more time to enjoy browsing blogs). and i do give a sincere thank you (either by email or by commenting, and yeah sometimes by linking too) on blogs that have given me helpful info that i could not easily find elsewhere online. hey i’m just curious but which would YOU value more? a sincere comment from someone who really takes the time to read your blog but who won’t generate a lot of web traffic for you, or the person with the web-fu that never commented but that you see has added you to their blog-roll when you check your web stats? i know… the best would be if the big-name blogger linked to you AND left a sincere comment which would then help to generate a lot of traffic to your site so you can make money on it, right? 😉
oh yeah, back to the money-making thing, YES i agree that with dedication and time, blogging CAN pay off monetarily, in one way or another. one of my former-blog friends (they are also a real-life friend) is still blogging AND currently being paid for it in a way – their employer as of last year is Facebook!… another long-time blogging friend of mine eventually got a job (via networking with blog and real-life contacts) at Amazon where they helped design this thing you might have heard of called the Kindle! i am totally one of those opposite-of-enjoys-recognition type of people but… when your blogging/crafting turns profitable for you and makes you famous… you can say that i was one of your blog cheerleaders way back when. oh and yeah one more thing i forgot to mention that you brought up… if nothing else, it’s always a good idea to keep up with what’s out there in internet-land and with technology. if only to be aware of what one needs to protect the young’uns from… which reminds me all over again that there is much to simultaneously love and hate about what technology can enable… i’ll end it here and we’ll focus on the love part though…
p.s. i was going to just email this to you but i put it in here since i heard that you’re kinda into discussing blogging and you sorta dig getting comments on your blog these days. =) you won’t hurt my feelings one bit if you delete this comment due to its lengthiness. this is a little like how some of my old blog entries would be on my old site by the way (long and drawn out). and yeah i realize what time it is – we don’t quite hold the sleep schedules of normal people during the summer. believe me, this week will be spent recalibrating!