Blogging != Job
I may have missed the announcement, but someone pulled a fast one on us in the 2010s and made us believe that blogging was a job.
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When did it start?
Big blogs have always existed, and so have ways to make money off the eyeballs traffic:
- it used to be adclick (random ads, usually in a banner, it meant your blog was bad)
- there were sponsors (usually your friends new start-up)
- sponsored content (reviews and affiliate links, also meant your blog was bad)
But we didn't have (at least not as widespread) people outright asking for money in return for content.
I put this down to the collapse of printed media and subsequent enshitification of online media, it used to be that a “Journalist” (whatever that means to you) had a job at a news organisation (newspaper, magazine, you name it) with a stable salary and a lot of free time to write what he fancied. He would build a good following over the course of years through his job, and would have an online presence where some of the articles, or ideas, that where not making the editor cut, would end up published… free!
This all changed when clicks and analytics replaced print numbers and subscriptions (the kind where you get a bunch of paper on your lawn every morning), everyone was happy to get away from those archaic and expensive distribution methods: have a print ready by midnight, send to the printers, then the distributors, then the delivery boy… that’s a lot of hands, much easier to press “publish” whenever you want, or “update” when you find a typo or better information.
Anyway, fast forward few years and now everyone is a “Journalist”, everyone can charge money for their opinion, everyone does!
In this case I think the words blog and blogging are misused: you are doing something, but writing a blog ain't it.
Follow up:
- Evan, there are levels to this and you hardly make the cut, a mild offender perhaps?, you also cared to question the default, and that puts you right and square in my “good ones” book.
Yes it’s fine to adress me as the old man, no shame in what’s inevitable (!), the fact the term is seen as pejorative, rather than respectful, deserves better words and thoughts, which I will save for another time. Thanks for following, I’m grabbing your RSS now.