Death of Blogging

[commonpeople1]

I've been thinking today if blogging and livejournaling is dead. Dead in the sense that most people who used them before have gone on to acquire many more social networks, and because of the increase in their personal admin (checking Facebook, checking Twitter, checking Instagram, etc) they no longer can tolerate long pieces of writing.

Twitter, to me, seems of the time. Tiny digestible nuggets that can lead you to longer articles if you so desire, but there's no pressure to read - you can easily just move/scroll on.  Before, with blogs and livejournals, there was the online social pressure to at least skim read.  Make some noise that you were paying attention. Now, they lie unread, uncommented, unnoticed. Or saved for "later" reading.

The age of people keeping blogs to document their lives as policemen / ambulance drivers / sex workers is also dead. Again, I think personal admin has got in the way and that type of cultural product is resigned to the noughties much like a lot of reality shows.

For myself, I sat in an old cemetery for lunch today and read some Walt Whitman.  I now know that Livejournal will never be the same, but I'm Ok with continuing to write here, for myself and for the few that still read this.  I've also started writing letters to friends who refuse to use social networks, and on Monday mornings I find a cafe before work and do a bit of fiction writing.

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure blogging is dead. I read more blogs than I ever did... and the blogs I read are more influential than they were. Maybe I am wrong.

I think the LJ model is dead because the majority of people prefer the quick gratification of posting something super short and getting a "like" or a "retweet". That has instant gratification. It's much easier to miss things on twitter or facebook so an important life event announced on those is likely to just go past. Twitter has more density of information... a lot of LJ entries are a few points and a lot of waffle. Twitter, or at least the people I follow, tend to be making a point or a joke or linking to something with every sentence. So it's easy to read LJ as "Blah blah blah" because the signal is so much less amongst the noise.

[rockingthemike.livejournal.com]

i tend to agree with all of this. unless you're blogging for someone else, or already an established blogger with an audience, long-form is essentially dead. however, that's not to say there's no future for it. i know of a couple people recently who have become so disenchanted with facebook and twitter that they're coming back here. does that mean they'll write more? maybe. will they write more focussed? possibly, but we won't know until the paradigm shifts just a little more.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I really really want to leave FB...

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I read more blogs than I ever did... and the blogs I read are more influential than they were.

But could it be that you are an example apart? And that your blog reading increased in accordance with a decrease in LJ posts from others...? I just remember all those people who had LJs or Blogspots for very weak reasons (and did little posting of any worth) - they now seem perfectly content with Facebook.

Your second paragraph is spot on.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I thought of that and checked some figures. Blog writing is growing steadily up to 2011 but I can't find more recent figures. It may be that there has been a decline more recently but up until 2011 there was very healthy strong growth.

I think fewer people have a "hello I'm Dave" blog... but instead people have blogs pointed at a special purpose attracting only readers for that purpose.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

That's good to learn - i'd also be interested to hear of more recent stats on blog writing. There are some really good ones I love and wouldn't want to see disappear (like Nickel in the Machine, for example).

[steer.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's harder to tell now from a casual browse because many blogs look so professional or are part of aggregator sites e.g. blogs within huffpo and the like.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's a good point! I hadn't thought of Huffpo - was thinking more of the oldies like Blogspot and Wordpress.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

*waves*

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

*pokes* *likes*

[norabird.livejournal.com]

Journaling is still the necessary thing to me.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say the same!

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

I miss the heyday of LJ, especially now I'm so far away, but I'm not doing my bit to make it better really. I feel like I need to be "in the mood" to write a blog post, and that was easier when there really weren't any other choices. Now there's facebook and twitter which are much easier. I have annoyed myself in the past though by wasting an hour of time or more skimming facebook when I could have put that time (indeed, a lot less of it) into an LJ post. "I don't have time" for LJ doesn't cut it then!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I miss that heyday too. I learned more from it, and got better laughs too.

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

I did wonder if I should have split my last post into 3 different entries to avoid tl;dr, but fuck it, I'm writing so that I remember stuff.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

That's fair enough. If most of us are honest, that's really the only reason now to blog or LJ - unless you are still one of the tiny tiny number of blogs that get a good readership.

[sor-eye-ah.livejournal.com]

Am glad you're staying around x

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Am glad you are too! ;-)

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

It's quality not quantity that counts, I say. At least LJ doesn't have surveys clogging it up any more.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Very true. We should make a post of all the things that have disappeared from LJ: drunk posts, drama llhamas, polls, etc.

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

Ah, drama llama. I do kind of miss those.

[arafel1.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if I agree with you. True, most of the people and friends I knew here are gone. But now the community seems to be more mature. There is much less drama or people with made-up identities. So, what if nobody reads your writing and nobody comments? At the end, most of the things we do pass unnoticed and have value only to ourselves.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

At the end, most of the things we do pass unnoticed and have value only to ourselves.

But then why publish anything online? Why not just keep our writing to ourselves, in a paper journal for example?

We are here to share our writing, and even if the audience is more mature (which I agree!), it's a shame when it feels like it's gone unread. Then again, I think people now get plenty of notice and connection from Facebook and/or Twitter - but I think those platforms aren't as fulfilling or with as much good potential as Livejournal or other blog platforms.

[arafel1.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose it is true. If I just were publishing for my own sake, I would not do it on an open channel. I really enjoy the feedback and through out all these years I have found good friends in LJ. That’s why I never locked it down like many others. But readers would not be reason enough to keep me posting.
I do like writing and finding photos and articles. I like the act of composing it in a cohesive point of view. Even without an audience, that process is important to me.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I also found some very good friends here - I just can't see the same happening on FB or Twitter! Well, maybe on Twitter you can start easily chatting to someone else, but on FB definitely not - relationships there seem so superficial or fait accompli.

By the way, how did you find my journal? :-)

[arafel1.livejournal.com]

We share a friend: Vikki, also known as la_mascherina.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Ahhh! I remember now! We used to be LJ friends as well didn't we? I thought you'd left LJ. I really enjoyed reading your writing... would you mind if I added you back?

[arafel1.livejournal.com]

Adding you is a pleasure. I probably visited your journal years ago but this is the first time we meet and share words. No, you were never on my friend list until now.
Days ago Vikki told me she was thinking about keeping a blog again. Fair enough, she doesn’t want to resurrect the old one. “Always onward!”, smiles… When we had that conversation, I visited her old blog and discover that, among the long list of friends she had, you were one of the few still active.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Please send my best to her next time you speak - it was really nice corresponding with her while she was here. I never got to meet her in person but another LJ friend, desayuno_ingles, met her a few times in NYC (Desayuno eventually moved to London, got married - I was her best man! - but sadly left LJ).

Look forward to getting you know more - have a lovely weekend!

[arafel1.livejournal.com]

Smiles. My story with Vikki is similar. We started chatting in LJ, so many years ago. She was living in Hong Kong by that time. We met in person once, when she visited Madrid. The European Gay Pride was celebrated here, over 4 million people from all around the world. After years of correspondence, we met that day at a party and it was fun.
I’ll give her your greetings. We keep contact thanks to FaceBook.

[myendeavorca.livejournal.com]

It's just such an amazing time capsule...that's what forces me to blog on. Even when I'm bored of myself I write because I want to be able to re-read it again in 3-5-8 years...and see how far I've come or how I resolved issues or how I'd made goals and dreams realities....that's why. :) It won't die, and unlike paper it is just a bonus when someone comments. Or likes what you have to say! And I feel much virtually closer to my LJ friends than I have with MySpace or now fb. In fact those sites annoy me, but for some reason I haven't abandoned fb...yet!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like looking at old posts too! I still remember you and I met through good ol' Rob Smith! :-)