You Damn Kids Get Off Their Lawn!!!

In which He Who Must Not Be Named uses Ezra Klein as a human shield to once again pontificate from Mount Olympus on what we rabble should be doing.

Are you as sick of A-List bloggers telling us why we suck as I am?

I'm actually quite fortunate. I currently have a full-time job working with great people on interesting projects, and I get paid well. My only hope is that I can stay there indefinitely. The drive is not fun, but that's really a minor concern. I can't sit and monitor what's going on in the world and then write intelligently about some topic in which I specialize, because in the mornings when I write, I'm racing the clock from 5 AM to 6:30, at which point it's time to feed the cats and get ready to go to work.

But while it's lovely to think about what it would be like to blog full-time, I don't think I'd enjoy everything that the full-time bloggers have to deal with -- things like having to buy individual health policies, accepting every ad that comes along even if it's for something you hate, and of course having to beg your readers for donations.

It's not that I object to bloggers trying to get paid for their work. Digby does a quiet and tasteful harangue once a year, and the Group News Bloggers are trying to get help for one of their own who's in danger of becoming yet another casualty of the Age of Bush. John Aravosis wants to give his bloggers end-of-year bonuses. I have no problem with any of this. After all, you subscribe to magazines, why not throw a tip at the people you read every day? What I do object to is when A-list bloggers, some of whom (and I won't Mention Names) write four sentences on a prolific day, and then tell those of us who at least try to long-form blog when we can, what we're doing wrong. And I object to people like Arianna Huffington, with money and connections up the wazoo, who hire dozens of IT people and their friends to create gobs of content and then go on The Daily Show to tell the rest of us how to blog after we've been at it longer than they have.

I congratulate and admire people like Josh Marshall and Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum and some other people who have managed, whether through being early adopters or having a particular expertise, for being able to turn blogging into a career or a business. But with the exception of Ezra, now an associate editor at The American Prospect, who touches on the notion of specialization, most of these people don't feel the need to lecture the thousands of us, some of whom are represented on the blogroll (and over to whom I hope you'll consider clicking every now and then), on the One True Way of Blogging. It's also ironic that He Who Must Not Be Named's first post after telling us:

The easiest way to drum up an audience is to find a some topic, issue, or unfolding event, and make it your own. Your blog doesn't have to just be that, but it has to be the go-to place for that, and then you can fill it up with crappy music videos or whatever else makes you happy.

...is titled "Late night" and consists of one word: "Enjoy."

So in what respect, Charlie, is Big Blue Smurf the go-to place for anything, Charlie? And who the hell is he to be telling the rest of us how to be "successful"?

This blog IS successful. Our readers are almost always people I'd want to know in real life. I've posted almost every day for four-and-a-half years, even when I don't feel like it, and even when there seems to be little to say. And some of it is even good. Some of it is even writing in which I can take pride. For me, THAT'S what a successful blog is -- something that people want to read. Traffic is great, but until and unless someone is willing to pay me to blog, I'm just fine with working a paid job and doing this on the side. And if this means I'm not a "serious" blogger, well, so be it.

And this holiday season, if you have some free time, please click around the blogroll. Leave comments. Let these good people know you're reading. And if you're inclined to throw money at your favorite bloggers, you might consider throwing them at people like Digby and the Group Newsbloggers, or anyone on the blogroll who has a donation button, or at any blogger you like who may be struggling to make ends meet and who doesn't think that putting up one-sentence posts entitles you to tell other people how to blog.

And mark your calendars: February 3 is Blogroll Amnesty Day. And we're gonna party like it's Inauguration Day.