Diary of a Mad Editor

Remember that old Neil Young lyric, “It’s better to burn-out than fade away”?

This line came to mind the other day when I found out a blogger I’m acquainted with had finally shut down their blog. This blogger has not been in contact with me for several weeks, so I don’t know what ultimately caused this blog’s final repose. What I do know is that this blog was heading in the direction non-existence for as long as I had been a reader of it. The blog’s author never seemed to be that serious about blogging, for one thing. She didn’t post all that regularly, had a habit of deleting the archives and starting over every once in a while and didn’t appear to be doing a whole lot to build an audience for the blog. The blog had also become increasingly unfocused. Indeed, the last few posts on that blog were fairly incoherent and didn’t seem to be written for anyone at all. Too bad, but whatever.

The fact is, blogs come and go — like pretty much everything else in life, nothing lasts forever. Eventually, this blog will end as well. Hopefully, though, not for a very long time and not because there’s no audience for this blog or because I can’t hack it anymore. Hopefully, this blog will expire because I expired (or because some outfit bought it from me for an obscene amount of money and they fucked it up). But you never know.

Although blogging certainly began as this frivolous activity about a dozen or so years ago, blogging has evolved since then. Most bloggers view blogging as a serious business. Successful blogging (whether you define that by the overall reach and relevance of your blog or through it’s commercial value) isn’t for dillettantes. Maintaining a blog is not easy. Growing an audience for a blog is certainly not easy. Keeping a blog fresh is problematic at best, navigating this vast seas of millions of blogs in an age of information overload. It takes some planning, some love, and a lot of persistence — and, well . . . gravitas. As such, anyone who starts a blog today better be prepared to put some muscle into their blog or that blog will cease to exist.

^*This post being is brought to you by a company that would like me to mention weightloss pills.