There are basically only two things one can do with a blog, read them or write them, but most bloggers do both. I just learned that what we have here a vanity blog. It’s called vanity because Marsha Lee is not performing a service or selling a product for profit. I’m just writing for the pleasure of it. Oooh, I’m SO vain. I probably have a blog all about me. I’m SO vain. I probably have a blog all about me, ’bout me, ’bout me…
So what about you? Even bloggers wonder why so many people are starting to blog. How many of you liked getting letters or post cards when you were kids? Why? How many of you use Facebook or some other social media? How many of you have a hobby that you like to discuss with fellow hobbyists?
Blogging is ONE literacy activity among MANY other choices. Why get started down the blogging path when there is already plenty of other stuff to help you pass the time? Which of these activities do you enjoy in your spare awake time?
- emails
- bills
- junk mail
- My Space
- news
- magazines
- TV
- video games
- board or card games
- hobbies
- books or Kindles
- OTHER
Are YOUR eyes tired yet? On top of reading and writing folks need to devote a little time each day to eating, grooming, working, running a household, and raising kids – the first or second time around. Ah yes, then there’s sleep. So why blog?
Let’s start with why one would involve him or her self in reading blogs. I only started reading a blog out of curiosity and to please a friend whose daughter wrote one – every day. It was about her life as a photographer and her beautiful family. I didn’t know her, but she engaged, not just me, but had comments galore that were as much fun to read as the blog itself. I thought, “WOW, this woman is Erma Bombeck.” I fell in love with her and with the process.
For me blogging is the height of entertainment. I used to spend hours playing Spidersol while I talked on the phone, finished a project and wanted to vege, or I couldn’t sleep. Blogging is a lot healthier activity, and, surprisingly, not as hard on my eyes. It’s fun, relaxing and informational as well. Other bloggers share their own reasons for blogging, but since I wrote this post, I happen to agree with them.
People Read Blogs Because: “
- I like to interact.
- I love to take guesses, vote on silly answers, and converse.
- The content including titles are what attracts me.
- I read blogs because they help me write.
- I am following you because your blog is named Blue Fish Way. Blue fish are the only of their species still in existence, or extant. Extant also means projecting. In psychology, one projects when they attribute traits of one person on to another in order to subconsciously manifest unresolved issues from a past relationship. A person like that has issues. If a blog resonates, provokes, challenges, or interests me I follow it.
- I like pretty things, a face, a blog or post design, and great photographs.
- I am always curious about what other bloggers have to say.
- I follow blogs that tickle my fancy,
- a poem, joke, way out posts, quality of post that has a different slant.
- The personalities are what keep me coming back.
- I also follow people who I think I can help in one small way or another.
- Bloggers are ordinary people with no agenda, who are not being paid to write.
- Good bloggers are a dose of intelligence and with to mix with my daily meals of everything else.
- Bloggers’ comments are what make us friends.
- I like bloggers who are kind, sweet and witty.
- I read because I am proud of the blogger.
- I love a blogger who is a uniquely passionate and courageous spirit: outspoken, controversial “Kalanian” like me,
- Successful bloggers expose their spirit and soul.
- Bloggers read out of fairness and sense of etiquette.
- When someone takes the time to like, follow, or comment on my blog, I return the action because it’s polite.
- There is a sense of community.
- iI’s pretty much the only way I get “grown-up time”
- I read blogs because it lets me peek into people’s mind and their circumstances and in turn helps me to understand my own circumstances better.
- It’s raw and real, like looking into shards of people’s lives.
- Blogging lets me know that I am not alone.
- Blogging is like going to the thrift store. I LOVE surprises. You don’t know what you will find, you’ve just got to enjoy browsing.
- I interact with people all over the world, something I wouldn’t do outside of blogging.”
Even though most bloggers start reading blogs because they write one, they didn’t have as much to say about why they started writing. I read my friend’s daughter’s blog faithfully for a year, without ever making a comment, I thought to myself, I could do this. Like most bloggers I love to talk, and I like writing even better. I blog to get feedback from live readers. I have content I want to share with someone, and I can’t burden my poor husband with all the stuff in my mind, so I need an expanded audience I wondered who might read a blog, and was scared that no one would. So I started to blog to find out.
People Write a Blog Because:
- “I want to find my place and establish myself in the world.
- I suppose it is to get my face out there, be noticed, recognized and hopefully to be followed myself.
- Blogging has totally changed me. My blogging experience has been about opening up, making sense of my life, and figuring out how I fit into the bigger scheme.
- t gives me a chance to lead my world. The blogger is the leader and all the followers are the students.
- I blog to share information with my students. I post:
- assignments
- homework
- content
- writing tutorials
- photography tutorials
- Pictures of class activities and photos that students share.
- For the most part I read and write posts for the connections I’ll make.
- It is so easy to talk through the blog to far away countries, and I can reach so many more people through the blog.
- It is certainly worth doing because it gives me pleasure to see that many like my blog, and reading the wonderful comments is so heartwarming.
- I met a blogger living close by accident and it is nice to meet bloggers from my home country.
- People crave interaction. To be heard, understood, accepted, or even argued with. Life is full of love. Love is defined differently to everyone. Readers read what writers write and writing is an art form. All is love. God Bless!
- Blogs offer an unfiltered perspective, which inspires me, but also gets me thinking outside my little me-shaped box.
- I have met so many other writers online who often have so much in common with me.
- Bloggers have a skill to share.
- I go to sleep and wake up thinking about stories, I take photos with the direct aim of being able to write a story to go with them.
- They want to learn.
- I learn a lot about computers. haha.
- I can get advice, jokes, and compliments.
- The writing and the process itself, satisfies me immensely. If I didn’t write, I’d burst at the seams.
- An opportunity to play with words and thoughts in a new way – I believe there is a lot more to be discovered about why me? and why now?.
- Writing is important to me because it’s the only way I know how to communicate something without stumbling. I could never voice any of this without writing it first.”
I want to close this article with a quote from a comment made on one of my posts from my friend Jim, aka MHDriver (motor home driver). Jim has a wonderful eye for photography, and has a collection of beautiful photographs he has taken over the years.
Marsha, I went to night school for photography. The problem was it was 35mm film. The digital camera is kicking my a–. The Nikon F3 and several of the lens, digital meter, and many other items were stolen in Las Vegas. Every thing was in a back pack that I carried everywhere. What was really stolen was my passion for photography. It took several years before I purchased another camera, that is the present one. I took a few pictures now and then. It wasn’t until I started blogging that I started getting some of that passion back. With the help of people in the blogging community, I’m starting to get some of that passion back. Because of people like you I feel a lot of encouragement by the hits, the like button, and the comments. I say, “Thank You Marsha and to all the other bloggers that has visited my site.”
Like most people Jim has tons of photographs that were probably sitting around with no one to ever look at them. He needed an outlet to share them. Blogging gave him that outlet.
Maybe you’re a reader who has thought about blogging. There are many, many bloggers who rally around new bloggers and welcome them into a loving community. Platforms like WordPress provide challenges and support articles that smooth the way so that anyone who has something to say can find a place in the blogging world. Do I sound like a blogging evangelist? Why do you think I wrote this post?
- Maybe I just want more hits on my website.
- Probably it has changed my life.
- It could be that I am being paid several thousand dollars by WordPress to write this post.
- Or I’m hoping to sponge a free night’s stay at all my new friends’ home so that I can travel the world.
- I’m going to get rich writing my new novel that will be turned into a box office hit movie.
- I’m doing a presentation for Kiwanis Club, and I needed to get my thoughts together.
- Possibly V. is playing poker tonight, and I was bored.
- If I don’t write a blog I’ll lose my job.
- Maybe my blog will help V sell more real estate.
- I really don’t know why I sound like such a blog sales woman. What’s up with that anyway?
Disclaimer: The quotes above are not exact quotes, but are a categorized compilation of the comments on the following posts, edited by me to read smoothly together.
Bibliography
- http://bluefishway.com/2012/10/02/are-you-following-me/
- http://bottledworder.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/why-read-blogs/
- https://tchistorygal.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/the-answer-is/#comments
Thanks to Hal for the following YouTube Christmas Flash Mob.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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