I thought writing a blog was straight forward. I’ve been around the blogosphere for over three years writing 5 days a week (M-F), bouncing ideas off the thoughts of other writers. I presumed I knew my way around the territory pretty well. But Andrew Sullivan has given me a twist that leaves me scratching my head.
Sullivan is a blogger who posts 2 or 3 opinion columns a day, one of them for the Daily Beast. What’s more, he’s just raised $600,000 from subscribers to create a third site. That people pay other people to create blogs is surprising — though I knew the Huffington Post began as a blog with some backing. Still the amount of money Sullivan requires astounds me. Should I email him to say he can publish on sites like WordPress, Tumblr or Blogspot, for free?
If someone gave me $600,000 to spend it on my blog, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. What’s more, I’m pretty sure that nothing I have to say is worth $600,000.
Clearly, Andrew Sullivan exists in a ritzier neighborhood of the blogosphere than I do and what looks like an egalitarian medium suddenly has a whiff of elitism clinging to it. I’m not sure what blogging is becoming. A business, certainly, if you need $600,000. But what kind of business? Journalism? Education? Entertainment? I’m not sure. What I do know is that those who are successful become celebrities. I didn’t stumble across Sullivan by reading one of his blogs. I found his profile in Vanity Fair, the same edition that featured Robert Redford and Audrey Hepburn. (“Out to Lunch” by John Hellpern, Vanity Fair, May 2013, pg. 60.)
Unlike Sullivan, I don’t expect to be profiled anywhere, not even in the Dog Catcher’s Gazette. That I have any readers is humbling and amazing. That’s the equivalent of $600,000 to me. I think this is a good time to say, “Thank you.”
(Courtesy of parler-de-ma-vite.fr)
