If You Read Blogs, What’s Wrong With You?

So this is a blog. Hi, blog.

My relationship with writing is an interesting one. I do it daily, and I do it with all the focus and love of an under-appreciated mom. In fact, everything about how I write reminds me of this haggard, gnarly-looking mom nursing a barfing seven-year-old back to health. It’s not pretty, but at the same time… it’s kind of something.

Not to say my writing is something. It doesn’t have to be anything, not to you. This is the 1,794,003,893rdish blog ever created, so I realize by the time you get to it the words might taste a little stale.

But this isn’t about me. This is about you. Because I have a question. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know your background, and I’m sure your sexual orientation is just dandy. But this is something I really want to know:

Why do you read blogs?

Like, seriously, why?

I have never run a blog before, but I’ve seen countless of bloggers rise to stardom through Facebook shares of their most enlightening articles with alluring titles. And yes, the titles are alluring. But is that enough to convince you to spend ten, fifteen minutes out of your busy day to read the body of the article? And what if the writing is bad? You still read it, don’t you? (But the title was so misleadiiiinnnng.) Then what compels you to follow that blog?

Lots of kids are doing it these days. And if you’re one of them, I want to understand your motives. We are post-MTV, people. We got bored of music videos at some point. Our ADD is a survival mechanism now. Why is blogging hotter than ever?

Here’s the kicker: I am one of these people who loves to read blogs. (Har harr, I tricked you and now you’re reading an article about how awesome blogging is. Not.) There is something wrong with us, isn’t there? I don’t know your reasons for following the blogs that you do, but I know that mine are shaky and not my best points of argument:

a) The more I click my mouse, the more productive I feel.

b) Fifteen minutes is much less of a commitment than two hours.

c) There’s just something about writing.

And what is that something? I don’t know.

Here’s the real kicker:

Yes, this is my first blog. No, this is certainly not my first time blogging. I make my full-time income by blogging. I make my side income by blogging. I get paid to output 500-word articles consistently under the name of an alias, and I get paid fairly well.

These articles are crap.

They’re cheap attempts at link-building for companies who can’t do any better themselves. I write 2-3 articles every day about subjects I know very little about, and I publish them on any site that will take them. And people read them. I see comments asking me for further information: how else can I improve my heart health? You’ve inspired me, do you think I should change my shaving habits?

I ignore these comments. Because it is not in my job description to further my content beyond that article. That, and I don’t know the answers.

Yes, I am a writer. I write for pleasure, but never for others to see. I feel guilty for the content I’ve spewed onto the internet, and this new blog is in no means an attempt to make it right.

This is just a tired mom telling their kid they are the coolest kid in school. And there are a lot of way cooler kids out there.

So, if you’re still interested, I’ll have plenty of obnoxiously-certain insights to share with you. I don’t know why on Earth you’d be interested. But you can bet that I’m interested in you, too.

I love to read your writing, internet. There’s just something about it.