In an upcoming interview, you will read me say the following:
I hate labels and putting people in boxes. That’s why blogging and the web is so exciting to me and I’ve long been one of its stanchest fans and advocates. I don’t care if you are black, brown, green, yellow, or chartreuse. I don’t care if you have eyes or ears. I don’t care if you have legs or feet. I don’t care if you are young or old. I just don’t care about the surface. I care about what’s inside. I care about what’s under the skin, no matter how much skin you have or don’t have.
I care about your words. I care about your thoughts. Your feelings. Your ideas. I want to know what you think about a subject. Not what you think you should say, and definitely not a regurgitation of what others have said. I’m so SICK of the blog echo-chamber! I want you to matter and a blog gives you a platform to have that say. Make it matter. Make the soap box you stand on count.
As I looked at that on the screen, I realized how much that summed up my feelings about blogging, a closer definition of blogging than most that people come up with.
When I read a blog, I don’t care about the surface qualities or characteristics of the blogger. I care about what goes on inside their head and how they translate that onto their blog.
What about you? Does this match your thoughts about bloggers? Is it important to you to know their color, religion, age, or sex? Or is it honestly the quality of the content that matters more? Have we reached this point in our development as a species?
Author: Lorelle VanFossen
The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.
Lorelle, I’ve been blogging for three years now – the first two years just highlighting our experiences teaching in China, but for the past year I’ve been posting about twice a week. And I’m still trying to figure out how best to do things. My blog is unique, in that there are no ads and, not only do I not seek to make money, but I pay to keep my site online. My goal is the enrich the lives of others. A different philosophy in a “get all you can and can all you get” world.