“I blog to hear myself blog.”
With that explosive remark, I officially re-launch my old, original blog: Vaspers the Grate. This inflammatory statement, with "please go away" overtones, is in response to a post by [blogger name deleted].
Yes indeed -- I blog to hear myself blog.
I blog primarily to improve my writing and to sharpen my thinking. I blog to render my ideas in a concrete form, to push them out of my head, and to then move on to other thoughts.
Comments, likes, shares, followers, fans, friends — they mean absolutely nothing. Such "ratings" can be easily gamed, spammed, and artificially (non-organically) manipulated. Digg, Empire Avenue, Blog Shares, and Stumble Upon are great examples of easily gamed social popularity sites. I have no use for such nonsense.
Trying to drive your numbers up is just using social media as a video game and scoring points. That’s okay with me if others treat blogging and Facebooking and Twittering in this manner, but it's not my cup of tea.
Popularity contests are silly because the wildly popular junk is boring and irrelevant to me, like popular music or popular movies. If it’s popular, it’s generally MEDIOCRE and just trendy and hyped fluff and nonsense.
I wrote about
Readerless Blogging in May of 2005. Since that time, my conviction has grown in clarity and intensity.
This is not reverse psychology. I am completely sincere when I say "I don't blog for any audience or to be liked by anyone." I admit that long ago, I did labor intensely to become famous, accepted, respected. But now, all those goals are gone.
Nowadays I blog only to express myself -- to myself. I have no desire to address any audience, market, or niche. I blog for basically no audience at all.
At best, I strive to create a body of work (
Pluperfecter) that embodies my personal beliefs and private dreams. I seek to have some opus to point to when a potential client wants to see samples of my writing. But even in that case, I prefer to provide them with dead tree magazine articles I've written on various web usability, social media, and business topics.
When I first started blogging, I did indeed try to form relationships and interactions with other bloggers. To accomplish this goal, I used blogrolls linking to favorite bloggers, and I posted tons of comments on other blogs.
I even compiled a book called
Secrets of the Blog Pros, based on a micro-questionnaire of two questions that I emailed to all the top bloggers around 2006, most of whom answered the "Blog Pro Survey". I think I had about 100 responses. O'Reilly was going to publish it, but then declined at the last minute. That's okay with me.
After about 4 or 5 years of this futile endeavor, I finally saw the light. I quit blogging to an audience. I stopped posting comments on other people’s blogs.
While I did attract a lot of attention when I was “trying to become popular”, and a legend rose up around Vaspers the Grate, and I still have some hardcore loyal fans…
…I now reject all that and care absolutely nothing about popularity.
I have a strong desire to be obscure, ignored, unpopular.
I deliberately publish only a few posts a month (8-10) instead of daily.
I don't post comments on other people's blogs.
I don't include blogrolls on my blogs.
I don't have a Facebook page.
I use Twitter primarily to rant about politics and religion, which a business blogger, like myself, should NEVER do if they seek popularity and the respect of colleagues and peers.
Even my
Str8 Sounds music is done under the radar, with no effort to make money or please any audience.
I now please only myself, and if one or two people benefit or enjoy it, that’s their fault, not mine. It’s purely accidental. I do not seek or encourage it.
I despise popularity. The greatest art is usually unknown or dismissed during the life of the artist. What I seek now is a tiny handful of like-minded colleagues to collaborate with and to inspire and be inspired by.
I reject fame and fortune. I do not want to succeed. I want to accomplish something far more subtle and subversive.
I am not anonymous or paranoid, but I admire the ascetic hermits who lived in caves in the desert. I seek to share my insights and to help others, but I prefer to do it with no acclaim, no accolades, no appreciation.
I do tweet links to my occasional blog posts and my podcasts, but I prefer, as Seth Godin once said, to be stumbled upon, than be discovered via heavy promotional campaigns.
When nobody cares about what you do, you are far more free to create what your vision dictates to you.
When you’re famous and admired, you’re a prisoner to fan and entourage expectations, a slave to doing whatever it takes to retain the celebrity status, please the disciples, and compromise your integrity and vision.
My favorite people are obscure, barely known to the masses, popular only to small groups of specialists.
For example: Harold Garfinkel (founder of Ethnomethodology), Iannis Xenakis (inventor of stochastic music and noise music), Langdon Winner (author of Autonomous Technology and exposer of the tyranny of The Technological Imperative).
Unpopular. Unknown. Uncared about.
That’s the ideal condition for a creative, innovative person.
Should you then continue reading this blog, or listening to my podcasts or music, or paying attention to anything I do?
That's up to you. But I strongly advise you to think carefully about your decision. You see, if you become aware of my writings and music and lectures, you may experience a deep and fundamental transformation at the very core of your being.
A change you may not be able to control.
A transition to a very different mode of being, that will make you unpopular, disliked, and rejected by employers, family, friends, and others.
It won't be my fault. You will have brought it on yourself, after having been warned.
Sincerely not yours,
Vaspers the Grate aka Steven Streight
