The recent NY Times article about obsessive blogging and the health risks to those who struggle in their post-modern sweatshop - to churn out the posts, to harvest the clicks, to gain their measure of fame - resonated with many bloggers, but left me underwhelmed.
Beyond the obvious point - if you don't take care of your body and nurture your spirit, as well, you place yourself at risk - I am not sure how anyone can say that blogging is dangerous. It may not pay very well, but this is the result of the advertising model that underpins the new media business models of companies like Gawker Media that employ bloggers.
In another post, I'd love to extemporize on advertising business models - with their spurious "no pain/all gain" premise. For now, the main point I'd like to make is that blogging is, at the end of the day, about some combination of good writing, good storytelling, and good reporting. My favorite bloggers on the KM Blogwatch invest significant amounts of research, thought, and time in their posts, and deserve to be honored for the quality of the writing that results. Whether this requires an unhealthy lifestyle is another question, that may shade into a conversation about creativity and art.
But the NY Times article is really focusing on the kind of mania that compels technology bloggers to post obsessively and stress themselves to the breaking point because milliseconds in posting times can drive audience and revenue. It is almost a zero-sum game of the sort David Mamet depicts in Glengarry Glen Ross, where Alec Baldwin tells the Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, and Kevin Spacey that first prize in their sales contest is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is steak knives, and third prize is "you're fired."
The NY Times article is also about compulsion and addiction. But I don't see how it is really about blogging itself. Blogging is a powerful and creative new medium of expression with different subcultures, some of which intersect the business world and require a cash nexus, but many of which don't. Blog as business. Blog as art or as craft. The two endeavors may overlap, but remain, nonetheless, two very different activities.
