The fantastic Jodifur came by the blog the other day. Which led me over to her blog, where she talked about missing the conversation that blogging used to be. My favorite line in her post was, "Let's take back the comment." I know I've been terrible about responding to them myself, let alone leaving them. I decided to take action.
So I clicked on my Google Reader. It wasn't pretty. I think I have something like 17 million posts to read. I clicked on a blog at random, actually going to the site itself so I could comment. And then I got depressed. I had no idea who this person was and couldn't figure out why the blog was in my reader in the first place.
I won't say that it sucked, because that is a completely subjective statement. But I will say that I hated it. Instead of just moving on to the next blog, as I would normally, I unsubscribed from the blog in my reader.
There's a part of me, of course, that thinks it's great that there are just SO MANY BLOGS, OMG, SO FREAKING MANY. But when everyone has a blog, that's a lot of reading. That's how I got lost. I started trying to keep up with everyone who had ever left on comment on my blog/was on a friend's blogroll/left a comment on anyone's blog. I started trying to speed read through blogs, rarely commenting and never enjoying just so I wouldn't leave anyone out. I never caught up and now I can't even remember WHY some people are in my Reader. Total fail.
What's interesting, though, is I don't have a thousand friends on Facebook. In fact, if I'm friends with someone on Facebook, I know exactly who they are and have a happy memory of them. That's my rule, when "suggestions" pop up, or someone from a group tries to friend me just because we're in the same group, I have to be able to describe the person and I have to have a happy memory of them (or their writing). If not, I'll ignore the request.
And now I'm going to do it on my Reader, with slightly different parameters. If I'm friends with you on Facebook, for example, your blog will be in my Reader (though some of you might actually need to post then, right Wordvixen?) If I love reading your blog, your blog will be in my Reader. And if you regularly comment here, I'm probably already friends with you on Facebook and/or loving your blog, but if not, your blog will be in my Reader too. Otherwise? I'm unsubscribing.
I'm going to pare down my blog list so I can take back the damn comment. I vow to read LESS in 2012. I feel like such a rebel. **
*But not Sarah Palin rogue, okay? I still believe in science and facts and stuff.
**This would normally be the place where I would ask you about your reading and commenting habits. But that feels so trite. I do want to hear your opinions and I really hope you comment. But I'm going to stop asking obvious questions at the end of my posts. It was something I learned in some "How to Be a Better Blogger" post and I'm officially unlearning it.
6 comments:
I regularly go through my blog list and unsubscribe when people a.) don't blog often enough or b.) their words stop speaking to me.
I'm the same way-I have too many blogs to read and not enough time to comment on them all. I vow to try to do better.
Also: check into the Reader's 'Next' button. You can put it into your bookmark bar and it takes you to the next unread blog in your reader. To the actual site-which makes it SO much easier to comment!
I, for one, am glad of two things: That you believe in "science and facts and stuff", and that you must like me, since we're FB friendsies. So yay!
Am I Really - see, you ARE really grown up. :)
Took - Oooh, I have to do that!
b303tilly - Definitely yay.
I use Bloglines for my blog reading and when they made the big switch to whoever is doing it now, I lost everything and had to start over from scratch. It turned out to be a pretty great thing. It helped me figure out who I really enjoyed reading.
I think commenting gets overwhelming when I'm doing it out of duty or simply to grow my own blog. I've done way too much of that. Now, I'm trying to read people who interest or inspire me. It makes commenting much easier.
Ooooh- I got called out! *lol* But, but... I totally posted less than a week ago! Seriously! Ok, it's a book review by an author that you would totally HATE (BTW- if you read the review and want to jump in on the bashing of the author, search in FaceBook for Stuff Christian Culture Likes- hilariously awesome group. I think you'd love them. I seriously only requested the book so I could pass it on to the page owner.). But, in my defense, all of my blog readers are also friends on FB, so... it's kind of like mini-posting. Right?
As for reading, there are a few subjects that I'm obsessed with and I'm subscribed to those. Otherwise, mainly just friends' blogs. Periodically I'll add one that I think I'll like, but if it bores me for more than a few posts in a row, I delete. I have so many blog subscriptions, though, that I prefer that most of them don't update often!
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