Speaker: Hello everyone. My name is Phil and I’m a blogaholic.
Audience: Hi Phil!
Speaker: I’ve been a blogaholic for over a year now and I’ve come to admit that I am powerless over blogging. It started with greed. I read a magazine article about a guy with a blog who ran Google ads in the sidebar and was making over $100 a month on these pay per click ads. Like anyone else I was desperate for easy money, so I started a blog and signed up for Google ads. At first I was very disappointed. At a nickel per click the money was adding up much too slowly for my liking. At that rate it would be a year before I’d see $100. I was still Ok with it, willing to be patient. I was writing, making jokes, imagining that thousands of people from all over the internet were reading my words and being amused. I had no idea that no one was reading my blog. Then it happened. I didn’t even now it existed, but there it was. In the bottom right hand corner underneath my post it said, “1 comment.” One comment? I clicked on it, and lo and behold (whatever that means) someone had left a comment on what I had written. I was amazed. How did they do this? Was this the tip of the iceberg? I e-mailed this person to thank them, thrilled that I had been acknowledged by a stranger from across the globe. Was it Ok to e-mail strangers? Is that what people did? Was there such a thing as blog etiquette?
The person e-mailed back kindly enough. I clicked on her name in the comment. She had a blog too! I was amazed. There were lots of comments on her blog! It appeared that there were hundreds, maybe thousands of blogs out there! I wondered, how do I get lots of comments? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to look like a blog rookie by asking, so I kept writing or blogging as I came to learn that this was called. I had a blog and a new verb about it! Then about a week later I had two comments, and then three! My first blog commenter had come back! Yes! It was the ultimate affirmation. The ultimate drug. Someone had liked what I’d written enough to read my words again! So I kept writing for my invisible audience. For months I wrote, only getting 2 or 3 comments per post. It was such a tease, kind of like getting a free sample of crack from the dealer just to get you to come back for more. The blogs I visited had many, many commenters. “I’m funny, intelligent, interesting,” I thought. “How do I get comments like my more esteemed blogging brethren?” I wondered. (No, I’m not dorky enough to use words like “brethren” in real life. The alliteration just sounded good here.) Then I read a blogger who was doing a very funny thing that I had never seen before. She was commenting back to the commenters. Holding conversations and bantering! I didn’t know what I would say, but if it meant more of the sweet, addictive high of comments then I would have to try it.
I began responding. And like bees to honey the commenters returned to express opinions and respond to my comments on theirs. I was hooked. I came back time and again just to read their words, their feedback. I yearned to know what they would think of what I wrote. Although I couldn’t hear their laughter, I was sure it was there. Serenading me silently through the magic of the internet. Now I can’t stop. I feel as if my blog has become a living, breathing extension of myself. I can’t give it up. If I did, what would happen to all I have written? Would my electronic friends cease to exist? How would I know what was going on in their lives if I could no longer visit Blogland? Would they go on with their lives, or would they have a hole in their heart as I would in mine if my blog were gone?
Despite the joy, the high I get from my blog, my addiction as any other, has it’s price. The pressure. The pressure to post something witty,reasonably intelligent, and correctly spelled three times a week. I can’t stop. What will happen if I do?
Audience: Uh, Phil? The meeting ended a half hour ago. You can shut up now. Help me put these chairs away would you?
HI, phil my name is quinn and I am a blogaholic.Leave a couple of chairs out buddy lets sit and chat LOL.Loved the post Phil I think you wrote alot about what most of us have thought and felt.
Thanks Quinn. Shall I put on another pot of coffee while we chat about our addiction? Thanks for reading through one of my longer posts too.
ah coffee, along with blogging my other addiction. I’m lucky, I feel no pressure to be witty or spell correctly, I can see how that would be a burden. I always feel sad for posts that get no comments on my blog tho’ as though they are ugly children that only i could love (not that i could love ugly children, but y’know, I don’t even particularly lie children…see now i’m rambling). Anyway is there another chair going?
oooooooh sounds like we are about to have “circle time” lmao….I would like a tea please.
quinn, where do you blog?
hello hageltoast….I am on beta blogger…you can find me @http://one-voice-is-heard.blogspot.com/thanks for asking, come on over sometime.
And another…I find myself periodically thinking, oh! I could blog this.Well, as addictions go, I guess it’s better than heroine.
This is one of my favorite t-shirts, I wear it frequently:http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/ladies/6388/Phil, I hope you’ve backed up your blog locally in some way. I had the unfortunate experience of using Diary-x for quite a while and had not backed my stuff up. The hard drive crashed and the owner of Diary-x could not restore it. Thousands of blogs were permanently lost and I was brokenhearted for a long time. Obviously I too am addicted to blogging. I think you really identified one of the bigger draws and what truly makes it come to life…your audience and their participation. It’s reinforcement that you’re not simply writing into the Air; you have an audience and develop a relationship, even feel responsibility towards them.I took a hiatus for about a month from blogging a year ago. I got dozens of emails from people asking if I was ok, when would I be writing again, they miss their daily dose, and some even asked me if I’d just email them with what’s going on…like a mini-blog. It was flattering, yet a bit scary, to realize that people actually… missed … me. Several times a day I’ll see something or think about something and immediately start forming a post about it in my mind. Fortunately I don’t blog from work anymore – I’d never get anything done!I’ve made some great friends through my blog…people that are now part of my three dimensional life as well as in the blogosphere. It can be very rewarding. And cheaper than therapy.
I’m a blogaholic too. But I don’t have time to talk about it. I’m much to busy blogging. Must. blog. now
Room at this meeting for me, too?(Screw the coffee…bring on the beer!)So, Phil. You hit the nail on the head with this post.I’m just about at my two year blogmark and it just keeps getting better and better!
Blogging is fun, and I once considered giving it up, becuase I thought that I had nothing worth while to say, but I felt the same. I thought not only would I wonder what my invisible friends were up to on their own blogs, but realized that they would also wonder what had happened to me, and maybe feel that they were missing out on bits of my life. I cant disappoint my regulars…and neither can you.
I am Chloe and i am a blogaholic. There would be a hole in our hearts, i can tell you that.
hi i’m fancy-face and i’m a pictureolic, because lately..believe it or not I really don’t have that much to say…is this true? you ask…a woman who has nothing to say….WWWWOOOOWWWWW,now thats rare isn’t it?????but I do promise when I think of something I’ll let yah know…
Coffee and a bloggers meeting…I am so there!!!
As addictions go, blogging is, while virulent, fairly benign. I liken it to my need for chocoate chip cookies–if I don’t have a couple of cookies a day, I’ll survive, but it won’t be nearly as sweet a survival.I like to think that I am sharing my cookies with those who stop by to read what I’ve written. Chocolate chip cookies are great with coffee. Pour me a cup and have a cookie.
You blogged about this before. The pressure is only self-imposed. You, of all people, know this.-N
Another really great post. Enjoyed reading it and am sitting here wondering where you come up with all your ideas. There is a reason my blog is mainly graphics.
Comments are nice but I rarely get any. For some reason I get phone calls from friends and family about my posts. (One friend actually left a comment on my MySpace page about my blog!) I always say, “Why didn’t you just leave a comment?” I get all sorts of excuses. Anyway thanks Phil for being one of my occasional commenters.
My name is Jock and I am a blogaholic. I spend hours each day trawling the interweb for funny blogs, but it doesn’t make me a bad person (just a bad employee)
marybeth,i was at the LA book fair several months ago, and i saw someone wearing that same t-shirt. celebrity, tv show host and author, criag ferguson, also noticed the tshirt on the gal and mentioned it was the coolest shirt he’d seen in a while.p.s. hi, phil :0) again with the witty stuff. kudos.
I love Marybeth’s t-shirt. That has become such a commonly used phrase among friends that I (we) need one of those!Your post made me laugh Phil. We are all in it, we’ve all felt it. I can’t complain because 99.9% of the time I really do love my blog, but there are days when I ponder it’s futility.I posted a link to an intervention video back in June. It’s at the bottom of the post I’m linking to here. Please check it out, it’s absoutely hysterical.Oh, and I am so blogging this.
Great post Phil. definately one of your best. By the way, like you, I have always wondered what the heck ‘lo and behold’ means. But I like it anyway.
You wrote of the addiction, I wrote of the fear in capital letters! BLOGGER FEAR…. same thing basically, but you stated is so much more eloquently and with your usual amusing twist…*pulls up a chair, holding my cup out for a java refill*
I think perhaps tomorrow when I am (follow all of the stereotypes here…sigh…yes, it’s all true):– Working remotely– Holed up in a coffee house– With free Wi Fi– Drinking a quad-soy-sugar-free-vanilla-no-foam latte (or 3)– While it’s raining – In Seattle– Blogging instead of working …I will wear my I’m Blogging This t-shirt and get some other losergeek to take a picture with one of our many mobile phones and upload it as my new avatar.Good God, I need a life.
great blog! and so true. i am new but look all the time to see if there are comments! see y’all at the next ba meeting!