Fight For It

In lieu of reviewing a new blog today, I'm going to get all expositional and metaphysical on you. If you don't like that sort of thing, skip it, I'm sure there will be another review up later on this week. We're all a little lackadaisical here this week, especially me, this is a holiday week for us in the U.S. (Veteran's Day), which interposes a day off in the middle of the week, and makes it difficult for me to focus on the online world. And like many of you, I'm sure, my real life has a tendency to overwhelm my digital life. I've made the healthy choice to prefer real life to the pale, imitation sort of life that is largely found online. I hope you have, too.

But, today, my point is to address why people blog, and what it means.

Three years ago, my relatively new, fledgling blog was scathingly reviewed by an online review site. I was alternately and simultaneously sad, horrified, ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, and enraged. Who were these horrible people to judge me so lacking in talent and depth? Nevermind that I'd willingly and voluntarily submitted my blog for an ass-reaming, I was full of righteous indignation. I considered, briefly, deleting my blog, and never writing online again.

Within a few days, however, my zeal had cooled. I realized something profound. In many ways, their review was dead-on. My template was hideous, my writing was self-involved and had the depth of pudding, and I'd posted semi-nude pics of myself online to build an audience in lieu of reaching for anything real inside me. They were right. I did suck.

But, they were also wrong. They told me to stop blogging, that they were tired of seeing blogs like mine online, and that I was essentially a waste of skin and oxygen.

And frankly, that's bullshit. I may feel that way about the overwhelming majority of blogs out there in the sphere. In fact, I probably do. But, blogs are a combination of personal/private and open/public. They are, and should be, a passion, an addiction, a labor of love. And, if you believe in what you are doing, or even if you just enjoy doing it, then you should never let a stranger push you into quitting. Oh, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop saying it. In some cases, it's tough love, the same kind of tough love I got in my own ass-reaming. It's meant to push people further. I don't want you to quit. I just want you to QUIT SUCKING. I want you to take the words of our reviewers here, weigh them in your hot little hands, let some slip like mud through your fingers, and the others, keep them and internalize them, like shiny rocks in a collection. In the great scheme of things, I want you to figure out why you are online, and stretch. Be more. Be braver, funnier, stronger, edgier, sadder.

I love blogs. I love MY blog, and this blog, and quite a number of other blogs. It is never my intention to get someone to delete his/her blog, and quite frankly, I think that doing so, after a review, denotes a certain lack of courage and integrity. If you enjoy what you are doing online, and it means something to you, why would you EVER let a stranger take that from you?

But, on the other hand, if you do ask, you should be assured of receiving a blunt, truthful assessment, that, no matter how painful, will challenge you to improve. That's what we do here....we will point out the good, the bad, the transcendent, and the hideous. And, for those of you who submit here, please be clear that this is not a site full of warm fuzzies and care bears. It's a place where you are likely to be rolling the dice between a bored meh and a full-on ass plunging by people who find you insipid, dull, pointless or cheesy. Because frankly, in my opinion, most of what's online is all of those things and worse. The odds are good that we won't like you, and if you can't handle that, best not submit.

But if you do submit, don't delete. Fix what's wrong, keep what's right, and grow a damn spine. If you love your blog, even if we hate it, fight for it. The world is wide, and we surely are not the arbiters of all that is good and bad. We're smart. I'll give us that. And most of us can write the shit out of something. But, ultimately, the only opinion that matters about your blog is yours.

Own it. Love it. Change it. But, for god's sake, be fucking passionate about it.