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By Dominik Marciniak
Translation by Adrian Kołodziński
The world of current blogs is divided into several regions. The most important of distinguishing characteristics is that of belonging - some of them to freely written works of people, who aren't expected to meet any requirements to start a blog, and some to the elite chosen by many different magazines as part of their blog initiatives (like the one launched by "Polityka"). I shall complain about the former of course, because the latter have their own, defined rules.
We live in times overtaken by image - we add pictures everywhere, we attempt to catch somebody's attention with them, pique their curiosity, add a story. Thankfully in a "tasteful" version it's a wonderful idea - by making our posts more interesting in this way we become more similar to press.
Translation by Adrian Kołodziński
The world of current blogs is divided into several regions. The most important of distinguishing characteristics is that of belonging - some of them to freely written works of people, who aren't expected to meet any requirements to start a blog, and some to the elite chosen by many different magazines as part of their blog initiatives (like the one launched by "Polityka"). I shall complain about the former of course, because the latter have their own, defined rules.
We live in times overtaken by image - we add pictures everywhere, we attempt to catch somebody's attention with them, pique their curiosity, add a story. Thankfully in a "tasteful" version it's a wonderful idea - by making our posts more interesting in this way we become more similar to press.
Sadly, everything has a certain line of good taste, and overdoing it is when the blog offers miniscule amounts of written content in relation to pictures, of which there is, colloquially speaking, "a shitton". We live in times in which we have Instagram and Tumblr, Snapchat is also a nice addition, and photoblogs still exist. What differentiates the traditional blogosphere from the just enumerated forms? Two, maybe three sentences of content more? According to many authors sadly it's true. We get lost in all of this, we lose the concept and the formula of a blog. We crave homogenization, as such curbing diversity, or at least that's how the trend has been so far.
More and more often I see complaints about the outpour of new blogs, oftentimes managed badly and without any ideas, usually being a thematical geminate. I don't agree with those complaints. There are a lot of topics that can be discussed again and for something new to be added to them, to inspire oneself, amend, express one's unique view, to look at the problem from a different perspective. Should somebody do that correctly - he'll get by. Even if it's a yet another blog about fashion, if it's well made, it will become more popular sooner or later. Heck, even an average one has a higher chance to become more popular than a blog like mine. Why? The amount of pictures in relation to text suits the modern taste better, to the benefit of the former. We should rather be happy with the increasing interest with this subject, that, though twisted by sins, develops the base of authors and readers alike. Everyone started somewhere, and the golden rule for the man is to learn from your mistakes.
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| A visualisation of the blogosphere of 2007 source: datamining.typepad.com |
Also, there's a difference between a novice writer and a person that constantly makes errors most likely being the result of laziness. Can such a person truly hold his success and forge it into something bigger? I doubt it.
Everything depends on our aspirations, although let's remember that when we post something on the web we can't just cover up the flaws by saying we're doing it "for ourselves". "For ourselves" we can write poems and texts to be kept in our drawers, when we present something to the public we need to brace for consequences of this action. We'll be judged, certain quality will be expected. Sometimes, criticism allows us to flourish, and sometimes we'll simply be hit by hate.
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