Thinking Out Loud: So wait, blogging *is* dead?

I admit I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas for this blog. I love to write and I love riffing on ideas, but sometimes the Learned Fangirl format can be too formal for my tastes and I feel like I have to be too thoughtful and insightful, rather than just spilling out random word vomit for shits and giggles. (Hence, my previous blog post, which was a lazy report of a blog I wrote months ago, but I also did it for reference purposes) So I don’t blog for weeks because I feel like if I don’t have anything “important” to say I don’t say anything.

Blogging fatigue hits even the most passionate bloggers, and if you are a veteran blogger it hits multiple times and you have to find a way around it. The pressure increases if you’re blogging for profit, something that I have flirted with but admittedly never really pursued because of my on-and-off fatigue.

There was an article in Crain’s Chicago Business about professional bloggers who have let their blogs go dark when they either hit the fatigue point or they realize that blogging can often be more work than profit. The article cites the latest research from Pew that cites a drop in blogging teens and young adults. Part of an overall trend that indicates the death knell of blogs? Hell, I don’t know. What I do know is maybe there is a shift in how we as internet creators and users look at blogs and their role in the internet ecosystem.

But maybe more blogs are meant to be transient. I like the idea of blogs having a shelf life, so it’s not a sign of quitting or failure when a blog goes dark but just a sign that author material runs dry, cultural relevance peters out or situations just change. One day, Learned Fangirl will go dark and I am OK with that, maybe looking at certain blogs as having a publishing end date is a better way to look at the medium.

And maybe not all blogs are meant to be monetized. I admit, as an old-school blogger, it’s still weird for me to hear about people who get into blogging as a career choice. But times have changed, I know and there are lots of people building careers from their blogs, but I rather miss the serendipity of blogging without a net, SEO be damned.

I really do sound like an old person, I know, longing for the old days of internet culture where anonymity and random self expression ruled the day, but I really think we will see a return to this, as dreams of internet fame and fortune fade away and the desire to share a passion is the only reward.

And hopefully this will be the last time I blog about blogging and TLF will return to regularly scheduled fangirl musings.