If I start with the assurance that I know blogging isn’t “dead” (as evidenced by the number of BLOGGERS who are BLOGGING), and go on to say that I realize that what can SEEM like dying is more like “moving on”/evolving/progressing, can I THEN say that I’m sorry the changes are what they are and also sorry that I don’t feel like changing along with them?
I will tell you what it feels like to me, even though that means slipping into second-person singular. Imagine being new to an area and not having many friends and feeling kind of isolated and less social than you’d like to be, but without seeing much of a way around that. Imagine that every day you pass a coffee shop that looks like it has what you want: people sitting around, talking, happy. It feels like you’d be intruding if you went in there—but one day you’re in a heck-with-it mood so you just DO. You order a coffee, you sit down, you feel super-self-conscious but no one is being mean to you or telling you not to sit at that table. You listen in to the conversations but you don’t join in.
You start going regularly, and then daily. People start recognizing you and saying hi. You start to recognize people, and you start to get to know them just based on what you can overhear of their conversations. One day, part of the group orders too many doughnuts, so they offer you one. One day someone says “Is anyone sitting here?” and sits at your table. Sometimes the conversations are split into smaller groups, but other times everyone’s talking together—and one day one of the loudest people turns to you and says, “I mean, RIGHT? You agree with me, right?” And you DO, so you say so, very briefly and shyly, and then the conversation goes on and LOOK YOU PARTICIPATED!!!
From there it goes much faster. You start saying something sometimes when it’s a big conversation. One day you buy a big box of doughnut holes and you offer them around. LOTS of people now say hi to you when you come in. One day you have a dentist appointment so you don’t go to the coffee shop, and the next day someone asks where you were. It’s exactly what you want: a low-pressure, big-group social interaction situation where you can drop in or drop out whenever it works for you—but also, over time, really get to know people well. Sometimes you sit with just one person and have an intense conversation; sometimes you sit with a small group; sometimes everyone’s talking at once. You get to know people and it’s fun to catch up every day. Some people do a lot of talking; some people do a lot of listening; some people do a lot of both.
Then a huge percentage of the group discovers a new place. It’s dark and loud—lots of dancing and dance music. You can kind of talk there, but you have to yell. It’s hard to see who’s there. A big chunk of the coffee shop group starts hanging out there all the time. Maybe they come to the coffee shop once a month, but it’s hard to catch up on that much time; you lose track of their lives and they lose track of yours. They say, “Dude, we’re not gone—you should join us at the new place! Come ON!” And so you try, but you don’t like it there. It’s not your style at all, and it makes you feel frazzled and exhausted, and you don’t feel like you get to talk to anyone there anyway. So you don’t go, or you only go once in a while.
Some of the group still hangs around at the coffee shop. And some new people start hanging around there, too, but they’re in a different stage of life and you don’t really click with them, and also you’re discouraged by the thought of getting to know a whole new group. You wouldn’t say the coffee shop is OVER—I mean, you’re still there and so is some of the group and so is the coffee shop itself. But it’s not the same thing anymore, and you miss everybody else, and yet you don’t want to go to the new place.
Yes? Good analogy? Does it include all the elements: the non-death of the old and yet the unhappy effects of the new? The concept of what is lost, and the sense in which it is lost? The missing of friends, without accusation/blame and with a total understanding that the left-behind person doesn’t HAVE to be left behind and yet chooses to for understandable reasons, and yet is ALSO SAD ABOUT THAT? The sadness of wanting to want to—but not wanting to?
Twitter kind of felt like a coffee shop to me at first, too: the way you could drop in at any time and find people to talk to. But now it feels to me more like the dark noisy club: chaos, with short storylines and missing most of it and too many strangers in the dark and I can’t see who’s talking to me and I can’t concentrate on what people are saying, and following someone means you have to listen to EVERYTHING THEY SAY EVEN IF THEY NEVER SHUT UP and you have to set up filters and lists just to process the number of people talking. Vlogging feels like it puts internet interactions RIGHT BACK with EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD where people get points for being attractive and charismatic and outgoing and fast-thinking, as opposed to blogging/internet where people could take their time and think about what they wanted to say, and didn’t have to look good, and where they could be good at written communication rather than spoken communication. Blogging still exists, but commenting has gotten difficult because of all the spam-blocking mechanisms, and also commenting has itself changed. And many blogs have turned into sales pitches—like someone who comes to the coffee shop and keeps talking about this great line of products they sell. Many others have turned into one-subject blogs about decorating or fashion or fitness or children, which feels similar to having a friend who starts only talking about one subject.
Meanwhile, there were people who followed my blog and I followed theirs, so we kept up on each other’s lives. I know that when they stopped blogging it doesn’t mean they’re GONE or that we can’t still TALK—but that WAS the way we talked! WITH OUR BLOGS. And now some of them never or almost never come to the coffee shop (which is just as understandable as someone not wanting to go somewhere else), so I’m back to wondering how to increase social interaction WHEN I’D THOUGHT THAT ISSUE WAS SO PERFECTLY FIXED. That was how I made friends; that was how I related to my friends; now some of those friends have moved away and I don’t know what’s going on in their lives anymore and I miss knowing what’s going on in their lives and I miss those people and I feel like I don’t know them anymore. Even though they have zero obligation to keep blogging about their lives just because I wish they would, and even though I would be pissed if anyone implied I was obligated to do so myself, and even though there ARE still people who ARE still blogging.
NO ONE HAS TO BLOG, just like no one has to be your friend. NO ONE OWES ANYONE A WINDOW INTO THEIR LIVES. But when so many people I knew stopped, I started missing knowing what was going on with them, just as if they’d stopped coming to the coffee shop where I used to see them several times a week, and I don’t feel like I get anything equivalent from Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram or Pinterest. (Except when a Facebook friend didn’t realize her Pinterest account was attached to her Facebook account and she pinned a whole bunch of “fun ways to announce a pregnancy” stuff.)
Swistle I love you and you get it. Your analogy was perfect. I hate Twitter these days, it’s too hyper and out of control for me. I don’t have a blog but there are a few I read. My husband thinks I’m crazy. I miss people when they don’t blog, I worry about their families, it’s no different to me than a book. But the books end ….. blogs go on…..mostly.
Fascinating. I was just thinking about this topic this morning. I got started reading blogs when I stumbled across A Little Pregnant, and then (even though that was decidedly not my issue) followed several other infertility bloggers. I do wonder what happened to them. And to Schnozz, whose “you are my 747” is still one of the most romantic things I’ve ever read. (See? You have to be there to know what I’m talking about.) It’s like misplacing a branch of the family.
I can help with this one! Schnozz reentered the blogging world as The Trephinist, but she’s recently stopped adding posts there as well — but you can at least catch up with her before that site goes away!
http://www.thetrephine.com/
Ooh, I started in the blogging world with A Little Pregnant too. I’m so sad that she rarely writes now. God, that must have been a decade ago already when I was trying to get pregnant since my oldest kid is almost 8. I think about it like most other phases of life: I’m really sad when it ends, wish it had lasted longer, but realize that nothing lasts forever and it’s better when it ended good instead of dragged on til it got bad.
I feel like Twitter turned into the night club the day they invented those lines connecting conversations. I had adapted perfectly to the habit of reading conversations in reverse – I could catch up with 24 hours’ worth of conversations, reading backwards, with full assurance that I had hit all the major points and knew who said what. Now, I keep reading the same tweets over and over, but it always seems as if really important tweets are missing, so I can’t figure out more than half of what people are talking about. For instance, I came in belatedly last night on an interesting conversation about manipulative children’s books, and from what I could tell, there are two books that are particularly awful: (1) The Giving Tree and (2) ???? Everyone else seemed to know which two books they were talking about, but no matter how much I scrolled through my feed I couldn’t locate the name of the second book. I think it must have been either The Little Prince or Love You Forever.
I wonder whether the people who are now filling up the Coffee Shop are having a similar experience to what we had there a few years ago, or not. There are a lot more people in there now, so it no longer has the small-town quality that blogging had when fewer people were doing it (you don’t necessarily know everybody, but there are no more than two degrees of separation). I get the sense that the new people are not really my kind of people in the way the old people were. But part of that might be a “kids these days” thing, especially if we’re looking at the genre of blogs that deals with new mothers with really young children adapting to the huge shift of identity and lifestyle involved in becoming a parent. Maybe I’m the one who changed rather than blogging itself.
Ha, I was in that conversation. The other book was the Love You Forever one. :)
I was coming to the comments to say the same thing about the new connecting lines feature in Twitter. Ever since that started, I’ve felt like I read the same 10 tweets 100x and miss 90% of all the related interconnected tweets and never can find them. Twitter has become like trying to watch a conversation recorded on a really crappy record – it gets stuck repeating the same stretch over and over and then skips to an entirely different area of the record and getting back to the middle part is impossible. I am a little bit in mourning about it. The only upside is that I’ve regained about an hour of my day that I used to spend on Twitter.
Love this analogy, it’s just the way I feel about blogging too. But I often wonder if it’s not them, but me. Maybe I am too old to learn new tricks? Maybe I resist change?
A very nice friend of mine, who has university-aged kids, told me once that she had to stop reading my blog – not because it wasn’t well written or fun, but because she was in a different stage of life and moving on. Perhaps blogging is a young mother’s game, after all.
YES, it gives me that “maybe I’m getting old” feeling too! And I do wonder if it works best during those isolated days when it’s hard to get out of the house let alone make arrangements with someone else and get a conversation in. Once we’re hanging around with some friends IN PERSON, and it’s not all that hard to do it, maybe the need for online interaction decreases.
I also think people stop blogging about their kids when those kids become teenagers—which is such a pity, because I’m finding the teen years as tumultuous and isolating as the newborn years.
Now that I am done having children and the youngest is in school, I feel like I am being erased from the conversation. I need a community that is talking about teenage issues and peri menopause and life after the SAHM gig winds down, but there doesn’t seem like anywhere to go for this. Even the real life coffee houses are filled with young moms and diaper bags. No one cares what I learned as a mommy veteran and no one seems to want to share much about this middle part of life. I’m feeling a little lost and put out to pasture. Certainly an interesting place to be. Loved your post as usual.
Yes—I felt like there were SO MANY people to talk to about pregnancy and childbirth and babies and breastfeeding and toddlers and preschool and birth control. And now I want to talk about high school and teen sex and college worries and perimenopause and second careers—but everyone is either still busy with birth stories and diaper choices, or else they’ve decided on principle that it’s “not their story to tell.” As if they are now out of the story, and it’s someone else’s turn to tell it.
Maybe it’s also that so many people go back to work and then stop blogging? Or maybe it’s that so many teenager stories are kind of scary and depressing and not all that fun to talk about? Or maybe it’s that we’re kind of floating in between two stages, since we have both younger and older kids and don’t really fit with either group of parents.
I suspect, also, that parents of teenagers are acutely sensitive to the teenager’s need for privacy. It would be nice if there were a way to get around that… I have two teenagers, and one thing I was so surprised by was that, actually, teenagers get short shrift. (And I am NOT saying mine are especially saintly; I suspect their behaviour is pretty close to the median.) I have been so overwhelmingly surprised by how great they are. Yes, they can be entitled and moody, but you can also TALK with them about REAL things. I mentioned this to my mom once, and she said, yeah, I loved the teen years. (And I was somewhat horrid.)
I am still not sure of the point of this comment… but there you go.
I saw a play recently where one of the lines really stuck with me, and it is basically what you just said. The characters were an english professor/author and her assistant/prodigy. The assistant was about to tell the professor a story, and the professor stopped her and said something along the lines of, “Don’t tell it! Write it! Once you’ve told the story to someone it stops needing to get out, so write it down.” I think that is so true in regards to blogging, and like you said, it makes sense then that the people most active are those that are cut off from other people.
I agree. I find a real dearth of blogs about kids the age of Oldest. I get it. It’s probably a combination of people with 11 YOs are probably as insanely busy as I am and don’t have time to blog. Plus there is the issue of one’s kids at that age and older getting old enough to warrant more privacy as far as discussions about them and their issues go on the Internet. Still, I really wish there were more sounding boards/discussions/open talks about older kids because there are some facets of parenting one’s first child heading into the teen years that feel just a isolating as parenting one’s first baby.
I don’t have a teen yet, but I will soon (next spring) and I do find I write more about the younger child than the older one. It’s not that he’s less interesting, it just seems easier to find the line between what’s appropriate to share and what’s not. Also he reads my blog and she doesn’t.
I turned to blogging when I felt like there was nobody out here in “my real life” who was sharing similar experiences with me. And it was SO just like you said up there. I saw some interesting people commenting on Catherine Newman’s blog, so I started reading them quietly. Then I gradually joined in and left some comments, and when I was sort of “a regular”, people started coming to my blog.
A lot of it, for me, is mobile technology. Before smart phones and twitter, I would catch up on blogs in the morning, while reading my work emails and drinking my coffee. If I was going to post, I’d do it on my lunch break, and check in with comments a few times a day. Now? If I have a small thought, I just throw it out on Twitter. I have instant interaction with a lot of people. It’s good; I enjoy it. It’s gotten me through many long days and nights. But also? I miss this. A lot. Sometimes it’s hard to put a post together because I’ve already tweeted bits and pieces of it.
As usual, what you’ve said here is so spot on. You are one of the reasons that I started blogging and connecting to begin with and I hope you know that I feel so very lucky to consider you a friend.
I have that same issue with feeling like I used up a post by putting bits of it on Twitter!
OH I also have that!
I feel this way too- I use ideas up quickly on twitter, and then to blog about it seems redundant. Also, I noticed a big change in myself when I started doing most of my internetting via my phone instead of the computer. Blogs are hard to read on my phone- most are not configured to be phone-friendly so it involves lots of scrolling side-to-side and the font is small and ARGH. Also, it is nearly impossible to leave a comment via my phone. So reading blogs became hard, I still wanted social interaction, twitter was much easier (if far less satisfying in many ways) on my phone so I used twitter, then I never opened my laptop to read blogs and therefore also stopped writing my own blog. For me, it all came down to having a smartphone. (Well, a smartphone’s ease plus a baby/toddler that doesn’t allow me to sit in front of a computer, ever.)
I’m tired of twitter now though, and I’m trying to find my way back to blogging. I am! I hope that other people do too, as twitter loses it’s luster.
Yes, smartphones! Not just because they make it so easy to tweet instead, but also because they make it so hard to comment. Sure, commenting isn’t “dead” but even I, who tries really hard to do so, especially on smaller blogs, do it a lot less now. I just LIKE reading on my phone and even if I keep the post unread so I can comment later I usually forget what I was going to say.
Even without smartphones (I read blogs at a desktop computer), I find I’m way, way, way less inclined to comment now—and I don’t even KNOW why. I remember I used to feel a little guilty if I didn’t comment on pretty much every post I read, whereas now I often don’t comment unless I feel very strongly motivated to. I wonder what happened?
Beautifully said. I agree wholeheartedly.
I seem to go in spurts with blogging, FB, Twitter, etc. I’ll go weeks without doing it and only miss it a little. But then all of a sudden, I’ll feel the urge to check in and see what everyone’s been up to. I do feel that my life is so much more busier than I’ve ever been though, so unfortunately, being online is now last on my priority list.
FWIW, I dream about you at least once a month. (Sorry if that seems weird, but the dreams are very nice. Usually we’re just hanging out and talking somewhere, or else one of else is popping into the other’s house for a visit.) Also, there is a woman at my gym who resembles you, and I totally make sure I’m next to her in class. I call her Faux Swistle. :)
Ha, not creepy! I dream about my blog friends, too! I love “Faux Swistle.”
Haaa!! I’ve had several dreams in which Swistle was a major player. Funny!
I totally get this analogy. I rarely blog, because I often feel like what I have to say can fit on Twitter. Plus, I’m not really well-known at the coffee shop, being still a bit new, so I don’t get any comments. It feels weird to put something out there, and get no feedback at all–it starts to feel like you’re talking to yourself, and who needs a computer for that, right? At least on Twitter, there’s usually one or two people who will comment/reply to something I’ve said. I’ve wondered sometimes if I would have done better with blogging if I’d started earlier–now that my kids are 18 and 13, it feels like there’s not as much mothering going on, so there’s not as many funny stories, plus you have to be careful how much you talk about older kids who may track down your blog.
Anyway…I’m the girl at the corner table of the coffee shop, who almost never says anything, and turns beet red immediately after blurting out some impulsive statement, and then hurriedly gulps down the last of her coffee while running out the door and giving you a quick, pained smile.
I may be over-relating to this.
I too am more of a lurker than a regular contributor on this or any blog I read. I realized quickly that when I do comment, however innocuously, I spend the day agonizing over it and wondering if anyone replied/related in spirit/laughed/thought “UGH!” etc….but when I saw that other people have had dreams about their bloggers, well be still my heart, there are other me’s out there and we’re not as creepy as we feel!
Swistle, I dreamt once that I went to your house completely by chance, rather I was invited over and then realized who you were halfway through the visit. You had this amazing, perfectly kept home with a vegetable garden and wainscoting, and the kids were off entertaining themselves while you and your husband shared a bottle of after-dinner wine and I was like “What is this Swistle?? Lies, all!”
Ha ha! A perfectly-kept home! I have that dream sometimes, too!
I found it MUCH easier to comment after I started blogging myself. Before I had a blog, I felt like if I commented I was yelling into the middle of a group conversation I wasn’t a part of, and that everyone would look at me, startled, before going back to what they were talking about; I also felt like the blogger would be like, “Why did you bother commenting that? It adds nothing!” After I started blogging, I noticed how few people in the comment section were connected to each other at all—and how pleasing every (non-flaming/mean) comment was to me as the blogger. Which makes it so much easier for me to leave comments for OTHER bloggers that are something like “I liked this!” or “Me too!”—when before I would have thought, “Why would the blogger care what some random stranger thinks of her post?”
Also – I love this analogy!
And I like your point about how writing a blog post IS having a conversation. Sometimes I think of blog posts as *slow* conversations. Slow conversations are exactly what I love, because I have time to think about what I want to say and how I want to respond. If a blogger writes about a topic, and her take on it is very different from mine, instead of feeling threatened or being unsure about how to continue the conversation (which would happen in real time) I can ponder a bit. Maybe I can come back later with a comment or question. Maybe I can offer new insight. Maybe I post about it myself, in a tangental way. Always, I have a chance to think first. Which I need. I’m not fast on my feet.
Swistle, this is so spot-on. I feel the same way and I know that sometimes I am off at the noisy club and neglect the coffee shop, and I go there because the club is easier, but really the coffee shop is so much better and I miss the old gang and the coffee shop too. You have such a brilliant way of looking at things. I love your brain. (The rest of you is okay too.)
This is why I love to read you and peek into your brain. THIS is the good kind of blogging, honest connecting and wondering out loud in a slow, thoughtful way. Thank you for keeping going!
(Also that Pinterest/Facebook collision? Too funny and why I never want to connect my accounts but then who can ever remember all the darn passwords and log-ins?)
Wow, that was such a smart analogy. What a great post! I was always more of a reader than writer, so I don’t have the same experience, but it is fascinating to read your thoughts. I have been feeling like the blogging landscape is changing too, but unsure why. One thing that has been bothering me lately is that there are so many blog posts or articles that start with “How to..” or “10 ways to…” It makes me feel like everyone has everything figured out and are trying to teach me something.
This is PERFECT. My current issue is finding time to blog, but I DO blog when I can, and when time allows I will blog more. I am the one who rushes into the coffee shop every couple of weeks, all frazzled and blathering on about nonsense, and then I rush out again. But I’m going to try to do better. I MISS it, and I miss a lot of the people, and I dislike the new, loud place (Twitter has its time and place for quick little convos, but I HATE those stupid threads that I CANNOT FOLLOW), and I certainly don’t like people suddenly trying to sell me stuff when what I want is a personal conversation. You nailed it, Swis.
I have been feeling similarly lately.
I want to blog again, but I feel like I have nothing to talk about. My life is so incredibly BORING. And I am not entirely dissatisfied with that.
Or maybe it isn’t boring, but I have lost that space to reflect on what fills my day.
But, I do miss it.
I haven’t blogged much lately because every time I sit down and write something, it’s just too REAL, and I think, “Gah! There is no way I can put that out there on the internet! My mom might read it!” So that means that my blog is pretty much dead. I have been through a LOT in the past year and a half or so, so maybe once that all kind of dies down and becomes less front-and-center, I will find my blogging voice again. Most of my writing lately has been super-secret, password-protected, unsearchable stuff instead.
I do hope this doesn’t mean that you won’t be blogging anymore. I so enjoy your posts.
I feel like I have nailed my coffee-shop table TO THE FLOOR.
KEEP IT THERE.
Oh, yes. I feel so similarly. All of those qualifiers in the intro paragraph exactly depict the hand-wringing I have on this topic.
I think the coffee shop illustration is perfect, and you have hit the feeling of losing friends so accurately. I feel this way about bloggers whose content has become mostly sponsored, and I no longer know how they are doing as people. So I keep reading because I miss them, personally, but every time I see a shill for a product, I get cranky. So then I wonder if I want to keep reading if it makes me irritated, but then I might miss something. There’s something so sad about considering unsubscribing to someone who I got to know so well that their family is on my Christmas card list. Sad to me, anyway. It feels like a fake loss, like it’s not substantiated because, as you say, no one has died.
It’s like this line of yours: “… now some of those friends have moved away and I don’t know what’s going on in their lives anymore and I miss knowing what’s going on in their lives and I miss those people and I feel like I don’t know them anymore.”
Whenever I am antsy for new blog reading, I always look for “ones like Swistle.” So, even though you are feeling awkward about whatever is happening now (death of blogging, evolution, blah blah blah), please know that your content is so reliable and enjoyable. I love seeing a new post from you pop up in my reader.
As for the weird Twitter threading, I have bypassed it by using Tweetdeck on the computer and Plume on my phone. Neither user interface is perfect, but neither has that blasted threading.
I know. I’m struggling with my own blog. I used to love writing on it everyday. Then my FIL made a douchey comment about something I wrote about and I had this feeling of “FINE. YOU get to know NOTHING!” and then my kids got to be 10 and 12 and it feels more instrusive to blog their every goofy moment where their friends can read it. Also, google reader going away sort of killed the blog following sitch for me.
I do unfairly believe that all my favorite bloggers should continue blogging everyday for my enjoyment.
Yes yes yes. And Google Reader going away didn’t help either. I found another solution (netvibes) but it’s infinitely less satisfying. I do miss all the ‘community’ there used to be.
I can’t keep up with Twitter and no one was sharing any doughnuts at my coffee shop so I mostly quit going. Or, no, I gave a few people a key to my private coffee shop. (If you want one email me).
excellent analogy!
WORD. I’ve pretty much stopped blogging, even though it was a huge part of my life for a long time. I also rarely comment now, when I used to be a prolific commenter. I still read blogs, but my Google Reader (RIP) used to have over 100 subscriptions and my new RSS (The Old Reader WHICH I FUCKING HATE) has less than 50, and about half of THOSE are healthkick blogs and not “personal” blogs. So.
I miss everybody too, and I can’t tell a good story on Twitter, which was what I liked about my blog. And Vlogging? THE HORROR.
Too bad too, because I have some juicy updates! Executive summary: Scott and I got divorced, I’m trying to get out of finance, Ava is finally noticing that her dad is a dick, I’ve been dating a guy who is 10 years younger than me (!) for about 6 months.
ENJOY, COMMENT-READERS! Heh.
Holy crap, Tessie!
OK, maybe Swistle’s blog needs to BE the new coffee shop?
DEAR GOD THIS IS THE QUALITY STUFF
Whaaa!?!?! Holy cow, Tessie! That’s it – we all need to start blogging/commenting again.
WHAAAAAAAAAT?!? Holy crap, Tessie! That’s a lot of Big Life Changes™ going down. Hope you’re doing well.
I still go back to re-read some of your entries sometimes. The Flicker one is my favorite.
Tessie. TESSIE.
My eyes just popped. SEE, this is why bloggers can never stop blogging.
HOLY CRAP TESSIE PLEASE START BLOGGING AGAIN.
OMG TESSIE! You need to blog again. You were/ARE one of my all-time faves. xo.
TESS!!!! Updates!!
This is brilliant. I’ve been pondering the changes, too.
One additional reason I’ve thought of is that I feel as if I can only be ‘out there’ a limited time on all these different fronts (Twitter, FB, Pinterest, Google plus, blog, work online, blah blah BLAH) before I’m burned out. Like even online, introverted me can’t keep up with the coffee shop and the club and the juice bar and the gym and the mothers’ group without needing a break.
No longer being anonymous online put a damper on blogging, too. I’m not going to lie.
I am definitely hanging around the comment section on this post, especially as I see lots of old friends coming out to comment. Hi!
I agree: I find I get “blogsick” after I’ve been online too much. It HAS to be pared down—but then we miss out.
I always, ALWAYS ready your handle as Now Hey Mama!
I’ve always said that will be my fallback name if the dairy-free thing doesn’t stick.
Wait–It’s NOT Now Hey Mama?!?!?
It’s No Whey Mama =).
This chain of replies is cracking me up!
I also love your analogy. Twitter never appealed to me either. For a little while it was novel and fun, and then once I started losing track of conversations, I dropped out.
I’ve been reading your blog for years, and have noticed that many of the other blogs I used to read have petered out a little bit. I didn’t even occur to me that these writers had abandoned long-form blogging for Twitter. I miss them, and am grateful that you’ve stuck around, Swistle. I think what is unique about your blog, as opposed to the other “mom” blogs out there, is that yours isn’t always about your kids, but also social situations, family dynamics, running a household, and so many other things that you’ve chosen to write about, which gives it a more timeless quality. I’ve always appreciated your unique perspective on life, so please, please don’t go anywhere!
FWIW, I’ve noticed that many of the mom bloggers I followed since my firstborn was a baby, tapered off once their kids were in elementary school (she’s now 8, so I’m thinking about the 2005-2010 time period). I don’t know if it is a coincidence, or that not having rugrats around your ankles 24×7 = a loss in blog fodder.
Yes, I wonder! I know I came up with a lot of thoughts that led to posts while I was nursing or while I was giving the kids baths or doing some other thing that let my mind wander.
Perfect! I am a fan of the coffee shop, and finally felt welcome there, just as most of the women went to the club. I tried it, but I’m too old for the club. It took a while, but I finally realized that I love the coffee shop, even if I’m the only one there.
To the comment above that wanted blogs that talk about teens and menopause and other non-diaper bag issues: come have coffee with me! I’m an older blogger — I started when my oldest son went off to college.
I feel the same way. But Twitter has always been a crowded loud club to me. Too much info, too many people. Seriously, how do you (general you) really ‘follow’ 800 or 1200 or 2000 people? You don’t. You cannot keep up with that. You filter them so you are actually really following about 60, but you can’t cut your list because then people will cut you and OH NOS! your numbers go down and numbers seem to be everything.
I still blog, but since returning to work part time at the start of the year I have less time for it and less to write about. And the boys are 10 & 11 so I feel, despite being rather anonymous, that I have to be a bit more careful about posting their antics. So many blogs seem to have become ad factories in the past couple of years and I think that really caused a lot of disillusion for blogs. I don’t usually have 140 characters or less to say (obviously) and when I do I text a friend or my husband with it so I know I will get a reply. On Twitter I feel I get lost in the crowd.
I like Facebook, it’s my go to site. I like Pinterest & Instagram but they are pretty much either/or things for me. I can only visit one a day (or every couple of days). But I read blogs daily. I like the wordyness of blogs, the comments, the time available to write & the lack of character limits.
For those that hate their Reader replacement, I have tried a couple, and I stuck with Bloglovin’, even though I HATE the name of it.
Ha, well. I blog like clockwork for an audience of about a dozen people, so I think in this analogy I’ve set up a little camp stove in an abandoned building and am showing up with my Ziploc bag full of coffee grounds twice a week for the area’s most dedicated hobos. And now you see why I leave the analogy-making to you.
Or blogging is ACTUALLY DEAD and I have BEEN A GHOST THIS WHOLE TIME.
(It only takes about an hour for Twitter to drain me emotionally, even if I’m not participating.)
Hey Erica, I love your blog! I found it through Swistle or Princess Nebraska I think, your photo captions are the the funniest!
Signed, Fellow hobo doesn’t even have doughnuts or a blog to share :)
This is a perfect analogy and it’s how I feel about the blogging community, despite the fact that I have no blog myself. I was only ever on the periphery of the blog coffee-shop group (due to the aforementioned lack of a blog), so I get that coffee-shop feeling from Twitter. But since September, work has ramped up so it’s hard to take a few minutes to look at Twitter in the middle of the day like I used to. And dealing with school papers & agenda & fundraisers and other stuff for the kids sucks away so much time in the evenings. So it means I can’t seem to find the time to look at Twitter (and the blue lines have ruined it for me too) so I’m missing all the things happening in people’s lives; now I feel disconnected or a little odd somehow when I do have some time to look at it. I am a quite shy in real life and have no good friends so without Twitter I feel even more hermit-like; I need to figure out a way to make friends that aren’t scattered all over North America and the rest of the world. My point is: lately I’ve been missing the coffee-shop, surrounded-by-friends feeling that I get from Twitter, so I understand your point perfectly. Not sure what we can do about the situation though.
I mean this so very genuinely – reading “mommy” blogs absolutely helped me empathize with my sister when she had her first baby. I credit the lessons I learned reading from all the moms to help me be there is a good way for my sister. It helped me feel less like I was loosing a sister to motherhood and more like I was accompanying her on her new adventures. It is probably strange how much I know about the pregnancy/birthing process and tricks to get young kids to eat as I do not have children. (It freaks A out. He is afraid I secretly do want kids. NOPE. But I love reading about all the other babies! Most of the time.)
But then – well, it seems everyone gets REALLY busy chasing those monkeys around and they had to let something go and it was their blog.
And also, I kind of do want to read/relate to others on things other than children and child-rearing. You know?
It seems like my same lament in “real” life – it is hard to stay relevant in someone’s life who have kids and I don’t. I do my best – I attend kid birthdays and plan kid-friendly gatherings nearly every time I try to get together. But, obviously, planning social time with a kid is pretty hard on a parent. I get that. I also get that this is a stage in relationships, and as the kids grow so will our relationship in a different way. I just need to hang in there, I guess.
Anyway. Also? It seems every non-mom blogger is either 1) MILITANT about not being a mother and are somehow CONVINCED that they are being slighted and demeaned at every turn for not breeding and that not having kids is the only way to “be” a feminist [WHUT?], or 2) a fashion blogger with impeccably styled photos of their impeccable life.
I just can’t.
P.S. TESSIE-MARIE. Or whatever your middle name is. Updates and details, my dear! Wishing you all the best!
I feel like you do Artemisia. I know so much about kids from reading everyone else’s blogs. It does come in handy when chatting with friends and helping with my nephew. It’s almost a shame we’re not planning any of our own. Almost. :)
Yes this exactly! I really miss some bloggers and their updates.
As for the coffee shop, perfect analogy. My problem is I’m actually better in a real coffee shop and not a written one. I’m not an eloquent writer but am reasonably good with small talk. So can you come nail your table to the floor of a real coffee shop. Say, in Sacramento? Bring friends!
As for blogging more generally, it has changed and I am not really changing either. I read more craft/art/lifestyle blogs than parenting blogs and all the craft blogs are all about branding and products. All the lifestyle blogs have entire teams creating content (I miss the personal stories–if I just wanted content I’d read Martha Stewart Living) and many of the personal/parenting blogs are languishing. What I want are about 5 more Swistle/Julias and 10 more Posie Gets Cozys/Elise Joy’s and I’ll be all set. Anyone? Anyone?
Oh, and one more thing. Money. Anyone think the money thing is the driving force behind a lot of the change? Sponsored post opportunities and the like? It seems like (many, not all!) folks are blogging for money and even if it’s just via ads (not sponsored posts) it does change the nature of it in ways I can’t quite say. Like blogging for the sake of conversation is no longer enough somehow. And if you aren’t trying to monetize your blog you’re somehow stupid. I’m all in favor of making money but in general I don’t think that the trend toward making has improved the blogosphere in ways I like. But, again, if you can make money off your blog, do it! Money is good!
I was thinking about something similar the other day but in relation to an old living situation. i saw the same people everyday in a casual sort of way with quick updates, greetings, and no pressure hanging out. but then i moved and basically never saw them again. There was some golden period of minor connectedness that i really missed.
I enjoy your blog so much. It is refreshing that it’s not about babies/diapers/breastfeeding (though I am exactly the target demographic for those blogs). I love your social commentary best. Keep doing your thing!
Word to the yes, Swistle. All of this. I miss that coffee shop so much. My own table at the coffee shop has been dusty and abandoned lately, and I’m really trying to convince myself it’s not because my MIL discovered my blog…but I’m certainly not going to hash out issues with my marriage or kids with family in the audience. And I’m just feeling quieter lately in general. I still read blogs daily, but I almost never comment, and I just don’t feel part of the conversation the way I once did.
Oh Swistle!
This is all so PERFECT. I miss the coffee shop so much. And maybe I was one of the people at your coffee shop, but perhaps I was at a different one. :) Sticking with the coffee shop analogy, someone I intensely disliked and who was there all along started piping up, sitting at my table, and EVEN SHOWING UP OUTSIDE THE COFFEESHOP. Like stalker-style. After much drama, I just felt yucky giving this person such free access to my life, I mean coffee shop.
But what I really came here to say was that I appreciate you and your writing so much. As the coffee shop has become more and more deserted, your presence is even MORE appreciated.
Also, for those missing the google reader, if you are someone who does most of your blog reading on your phone, the Feedly app is pretty great, and functions much the same as the google reader did, just a little more slick looking.
Speaking of old coffeeshop peeps I miss, is Jonna out there somewhere?
Twitter! I know that probably doesn’t help:( But that’s where she is and even if you’re more of a drop-in Twitter person as opposed to a regular you’re sure to see her:)
yes! Great analogy.
Perfect analogy is perfect. And I’m one of the ones who left the coffee shop. I didn’t even go to the dance club instead. Now it’s like, I yell things into the dance club sometimes, and try to notice if anyone yelled back, and I like to stop in at the coffee shop occasionally, but I almost never want to make my own point and really I just want to listen to other people, BUT I used to have this handy reader (for which I have no analogy) that helped me listen to everyone else in the coffee shop, and now I don’t, so I don’t catch up with nearly as many people, and I miss them and occasionally wonder what is happening, but not enough to change my basic choices.
I’m totally nodding at your awesome comparison. While I do enjoy your People Magazine quips on Twitter, I SO enjoy your actual blog posts that I save them for last in my reader, and then usually come over to read the comments too. Blogging is a good format for us slow-thinkers to have great conversations.
I’m glad you’re still in the coffee shop. You were one of the first bloggers I ever followed, and I would really, really miss you if you stopped blogging. I remember clearly the first time you commented on my blog – I felt like “wow, SWISTLE commented on MY blog! I’m in the big time now!” It was a huge thrill. I still love to comment and read comments because SOMEONE is out there, you know? Not to sound like the Bachelor contestents but it’s like we have this great connection, us old-skool bloggers.
Me, too. I can remember exactly on which posts Swistle commented on my defunct blog. :)
Ha ha, U guys R silly
Totally not silly :) It was a post about a friend going through infertility treatments ranting about me on her blog because I was having a really difficult time with my pregnancy and an extremely difficult toddler (and had written about it on my now defunct blog). A straight up blog battle!
Oh, yeah, I HATE that kind of thing! WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR LUCKINESS. WE NEVERTHELESS LAY CLAIM TO THE APPLICABLE SUCKINESS.
Your comments and encouragement have absolutely meant the world to me. Long live the coffee shop! Long live brownies!
I had to skip all the comments (sorry) so I could remember what I wanted to say – I’ve only been blogging for a few years and, oddly enough, I started while mine was still a teenager (we didn’t have blogging when mine was a baby, sadly enough – I could have used the camaraderie back then). In the few short years that I’ve been blogging, I’ve seen a shift – and I’ve determined that with that shift I have to branch out to other places and meet new people/blogs (which is probably how I found you). As the parent of a teenager you are more aware of what you put out there; but I think a lot of us still feel the need to share and meet other like minded people. While Twitter is “okay” and FaceBook mostly irritates me, I think that blogging is still the best way to “meet” people and have “conversations. It’s just a matter of finding that new niche.
And the coffee shop analogy? PERFECT!
I’m making a hatchmark in my pro-Swistle column for “adamant that blogging is not dead” because you KNOW how I FEEL about the BULLPUCKEY.
|
RIGHT??
Also, I feel sentimental about your commenting icon, because that’s the one you were using on Twitter when I started following you. It took a long time for me to stop picturing you as a platinum blonde. Even though the lady in that picture is not necessarily a platinum blonde but maybe just a white silhouette. NEVERTHELESS.
I feel like sometime, maybe when we hang out some February, I should whip out my old student ID for you, in which I am, indeed, a shining and ill advised blonde.
Did you use BANANARINES?
If this were Twitter, I would start this.
I really enjoy your coffee house. Please do not turn into a disco.
I am already looking forward to your Christmas season posts and reading about who successfully stays up until midnight on NYE.
I’ve wondered if my corner of the net was just growing up and feeling overexposed, and somewhere else there is a different corner, young and thriving and sharing it all online. But I don’t care to go find that new corner either.
Holly at Holly Would If She Could, explained this very well last week. It is all about niche, and I hate niche. I have been reading online since blogs were called online journals-and people wrote and shared their lives, not worrying about sponsors or offending people. I KNOW no one owes me anything-and I am more than happy when people can earn a few dollars doing what they love. Yet I am done with the sponsored posts that you wonder if the product is something the author ever used, the trend towards the commercial. I remember the way it used to be, when you got a slice of life from people willing to share-the funny, and the heartbreaking details of their lives.
Yes. This. Exactly this. I’ve been missing the coffee shop, but I don’t know how to come back!
I first started reading this blog and a couple dozen others when my kids were babies and toddlers, and it just created such a huge community for me. I loved hashing out my feelings (and keeping track of baby/toddler milestones) on my own blog, but then I had a skeezy ex-boyfriend that found me and started reading and commenting every day, (NO.) and then I joined Facebook and that kind of filled my need for community a little bit, then I went back to work full time and had no time to do any writing anywhere. I still read those same few dozen folks, formerly in my beloved Google Reader, and now Feedly. It is like catching up with old friends, which is weird because you probably don’t know me at all, yet I love reading pretty much everything you write. I do have a few FB friends that I “met” through blogging, and it feels like we’ve known each other for years even though I’ve never actually met them.
All that to say, I’m glad you’re still blogging and I hope you never stop.
I had a nice little bloggy group going for a while but several of those bloggers have slowed down significantly or quit altogether. I like FB but don’t do Twitter or anything like that. I know I stopped blogging when I felt like all I had to talk about was bad news (we were going through some financial stuff, almost lost our house and I just couldn’t continue to write about it- it was too much for me!). I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of blogging and find myself with severe writer’s block. I just keep feeling like the things I start to write about aren’t worthwhile and I need to get out of that head space because I should just. write. I never had anymore than a handful of readers (if that) at any given time so it’s not like I need to focus on entertaining a crowd. And that was never my reason for blogging but I think I got used to the gratification of a few comments. But I miss it! So for now I will keep reading my faves (here included) and try to get myself back into writing :)
You are SO SMART and I am SO GLAD you are still at the coffee shop =)!
Spot on, Swistle, as always. For me, I had a couple of run-ins at the coffee shop that made me feel I needed a break. And every time I tried to come back to the coffee shop I got stuck at the door, completely intimidated by all the new people. I realized recently that having your own table there is okay, and maybe having some quiet reflection there by yourself is okay, and eventually you see that there are still some familiar faces though they have different haircuts and have been going to a gym. Though I have not, at all!
Well this is strange, that no one has mentioned Tumblr as an interesting place to hang out. I do acknowledge feeling like the oldest person on there, and that can feel a little bit weird but i wonder if i just haven’t found the right table to sit at, so to speak? I have focused on fitness and nutrition Tumblrs, but there are so many good things to read. And all in one spot. Twitter just seems frenetic, not my style. I blogged when i was going through my divorce, it kept me sane then. But now remarried, i don’t feel the same urge to share. Nothing new under the sun.
Laura, I LOVE TUMBLR. I love it so hard. It is easy to just read and not feel like you have to DO anything, which is where I am in this whole blogging thing. I just want to sit back and be a fan. Twitter used to be fun for me but now it’s too much and I hate it. I miss the people on Twitter, but not enough to re-immerse myself constantly. It’s too much COMMITMENT. I am apparently a social media commitmentphobe.
It’s a bit of an effort to insinuate oneself into the Tumblr community– but honestly, i find it a much more insurmountable effort to try to insinuate myself into real life friendships. :) Everyone’s already matched up at my age! Anyway. Tumblr steals my life sometimes, but that’s ok. :)
http://serenitysonora.tumblr.com/ that’s me! :)
Tumblr puzzles me. It’s people posting stuff written by other people, right? So it seems like a good place to find a lot of interesting posts/articles on a particular topic, but not a good place to make friends and get to know about their lives.
It’s pretty much a blog aggregator. There is a ton of reblogging going on; i find it sort of heartening when i see things that resonate, to me it shows i’m not the only one with such feels. :) But you can post whatever you like, long or short, pics, personal, etc. It is on a different level perhaps from traditional blogging, and i wonder if that’s a generational thing, younger people moving away from long form confessional and towards pithy, often illustrated sharing. I do feel at best like the elderly aunt who can make relevant contributions to the conversations, and at worst like a creeper (no liking the before and after pics of young guys. just no. :) )
I completely let my blog go fallow. For some inexplicable reason, I got scared of the Internet. I started feeling extremely uncomfortable and anxious about putting so much out there. And then I felt like I could only put safe things out there and safe is boring. Same goes with Twitter and Facebook.
I recently started trying to tweet again. And I’ve actually written a few blog posts too, though my blog is marked private. But I don’t know, every time I start to say okay, I’m going to jump back in this, I freeze up. I actually have thought many times about shutting everything down completely but I can’t quite let go and I think the coffee shop analogy is perfect. Except my coffee shop has a closed sign on it and I keep walking by it, instead of simply finding a new coffee shop.
I’ll always want to hang out at your coffee shop, Swistle!
I use Twitter as a professional vehicle. It’s fine for that. I’ve met interesting colleagues through conferences that way in particular. If someone is using the Twitter back channel at a conference, you can figure out who else is there and that they might have similar interests. Having said that, the things I’ve said on Twitter that have gotten noticed the most are things like pithy observations about my favorite sports team – not anything professional.
I hate Facebook. My cat has a fake account so I can vote in contests if that’s the only way to vote.
I don’t really see the point of Tumblr either, I’m afraid. Some people whose blogs I used to follow faithfully have moved to tumblrs, and I usually don’t bother checking them very often. I want to know what’s going on with the blog authors and don’t care so much if they’re aggregating opinions or projects from elsewhere.
I don’t blog myself. My Internet leisure time is focused on things that don’t have anything to do with my professional identity, and I’m wary of saying too much that might alienate potential colleagues or future employers.
I was still sitting in the corner of the coffee shop, nursing my hot beverage and sort of tentatively reaching out here and there to the group when everyone up and moved to the disco. And I kept thinking, well some people still come to the coffee shop, if I just hang out here enough maybe I can still be part of the group. Only then I completely stopped drinking coffee (i.e., I haven’t written a blog post in more than two years), and thought maybe hanging out with my tea and just people watching is better for my life right now anyway. So I read a few blogs still, and comment, but I don’t link to my own blog, because who cares what I was doing two years ago? And I don’t follow anyone on Twitter, because I don’t have a smartphone yet, and don’t tweet myself because I have enough stuff sucking up my Internet time and distracting me from work (ahem). I suspect I’ll go to the disco right about when everybody else is moving on to wandering raves, or whatever.
OK, I wrote a novella length comment yesterday and WordPress bloody ATE it so I got mad and gave up momentarily. I am back today to try again!
I love absolutely everything you and everyone else has said here. I agree completely. I feel like Twitter is just a way to communicate via texting with the ENTIRE WORLD, which is just not for me. It’s fine, it’s not like a moral judgement thing, it’s just not my bag. I have enough aggravation texting people I know! I just feel like short, written communication isn’t enough to convey tone and context and meaning, and so it’s SO EASY to get into back and forth snits that would never have happened IRL if you could see someone’s face and body language and EYES. But blogging, I think, gives you the sheer space to fully express yourself and hopefully not start any unintentional arguments.
Also, I’m glad I’m not the only one who has had Swistle dreams. In mine I was babysitting your kids while you went to the dentist. :)
Also ALSO: Tess! Please, FTLOG, write again!
I have been thinking about this post since you wrote it, as I am one who used to spend all my free time in the coffee shop, and now am there much more rarely. Partly it is that so many of the people I used to talk to aren’t there themselves much anymore, but mostly it is because once the coffee shop gathering got big enough, people who hadn’t even been aware of the coffee shop started showing up, and, well, imagine trying to have an animated, intimate conversation with, say, your mother-in-law at the next table listening in. And also your mother, and some aunts, and everyone you work with, and your kid’s teachers, and…so.
I have this problem! Even on Twitter, because my mom and mother-in-law read everything I post, so I can’t be quite as candid as I would be in an actual coffee shop. But that was always the case for me, I guess.
Excellent analogy. I’ve been feeling it too. For me, it’s the insta-tweet-lr-book that feels chaotic. Somedays I just want writers to blog, right? And this from a sometime blogger who likes to hang out on the fringes of the coffee shop and listen in on the stories.
I’m enjoying all the awesome comments and snippets of ideas too – small town blogging, slow conversations, stories pushing to get out, and the sometimes uncomfortable people who drop by… I think I abandoned my first blog because it contained too many bitter IF stories. Even my current one runs third, er seventh, to family and school, et al. One of my favorite bloggers just stopped completely after she realized she said everything that was needing to be written or processed. I don’t keep my journals as obsessively as I used to now that I can process things with my spouse and/or blog.
On thing I realized too, Swistle, is that while you’re not flashy like some bloggers, your “place” emits a slow but irresistible pull into interesting musings and conversations. I keep coming back because your corner of the coffeeshop is so interesting and comfortable. I’m just going to sit over here with my hands around a mug, and nod my head.
Have a doughnut!
I love this post, Swistle, love it SO MUCH. I feel like I’m missing old friends with so many blogs that are not updated, OR, that I’ve lost track of because I was one of those dumb people who didn’t back up my Google Reader before it went kaput! I’m so sad about that… I was just so busy at the time, wasn’t blogging much myself, and missed the timeline on it.
I feel like Blogging has changed, and it has for me. When I began a blogspot blog, I was enjoying the “coffee shop” as you say so very much! Your blog was one I discovered and then interacted with, and then there were so many awesome bloggers I discovered through the comment threads on this very blog. I had made some connections, but then… well, I had to go through a whole online identity shift. My first blog, being completely honest about my identity, had pictures of my face and very true stories about my life using real names.
Two big things happened: first, I became a teacher. Good Lord, did I ever feel self-conscious on the Internet after becoming a teacher. I needed anonymity STAT! Not that I was “discovered”, but I so easily could have been, and I don’t want to be Googled by parents. I’m not a person who is doing anything wrong or who is controversial in any way, but I also didn’t need my students parents to read about my family, my life, my friends, and know too much about me in that way.
The second big thing: I went through A MASSIVE BREAK UP… my boyfriend of 6 years. Well. I sure as heck didn’t want HIM to be able to continue to read up on my life. Maybe he wouldn’t have, but I felt SO self-conscious… I was beginning to second guess everything I wrote.
So, I made my old blog Private, and had to create an entirely new online persona. New Twitter handle, new blog, new gmail account, etc, etc. I still post real things and real feelings, but have to use pseudonyms, no pictures of my face, AND I still feel self-conscious before writing some stories, and thus don’t write as often or as detailed as I’d like. I also tried the route of making a bit of money off my blog for a bit, but then realized that teaching is way too hectic to have a side job, so I’m pulling back a bit from any of that. That was a different route, and definitely didn’t make my blog as accessible/interesting as a journal or space for social interaction.
I feel sad about it, wistful for the “good old days”. But a post like this from you… reminds me I can still find some of it. It makes me want to get blogging again, in a traditional way.
I love this. I like the coffee shop. I’d buy you a donut.
I’ve never actually managed to be a blogger, but I’m a big-time reader of blogs, so basically just hanging out on the edges listening to stories. Wait, that sounds pitiful. I don’t mean it to sound pitiful, I’m perfectly happy!
I am just now in the infant/toddler/pregnancy stage, so I also feel a little behind people. Although I do have a list of your posts Swistle that I keep by my computer to read when I need a boost. (Postpartum; The Facts; Tomatoes in August; Bad News) They keep me going. I guess that is my point. People might be moving on from the coffee shop, but the coffee there is still a lifesaver for some of us. :)
Stimey left a link to this on a post I wrote where I said I felt like I didn’t feel like I belonged in the blogosphere anymore. You said it so much more eloquently then I did. This is perfection.
I hopped over for the same reason Jodi did.
Stimey was right. you nailed this.
Thanks. I want to go back to the coffee shop too.
yes, this is it. absolutely.