I had some great mindfood this morning as I read an article about how blogs thrive on content about people ‘messing up.’
Seriously.
Think about it.
When someone does something stupid it gets blogged about. It gets blogged about fast. In the Twitterverse you’ll get information about someone’s screw up before mainstream media.
Essentially, blogging, to a certain degree, proves that humanity is indeed ‘broken.’
Now I need some coffee because my brain needs juice.
[Image from Erik]
I suppose it depends on what you read and what you blog about. I read you… and don't see alot of this 'someone screwed up' kind of articles. And personally, I blog about books and history. Does messing up in the Roman Empire count?!?
Pam,Hehe! I suppose it depends on what you read. It was just one perspective, I suppose… and yes, the Roman Empire does count…! (in this context).:)
will it get me more readers?
doh
wrong motivation.
I think that it is the same reason what makes controversity, disaster (personal and earth) and mishap videos viral.
Or why people slow down and rubber neck at accidents.
It identifies with some sick part of them – that broken part. They wanna see that they are not the only one that is broken.
Did you know there was a Twitter hashtag to report ChurchCrunch downtime?
John, you're focused on why the big newspapers are dying. Small town papers ran great small articles on human interest success stories. But MSM has been focused on negative bleeding edge news because people want to be "informed" in the event anything happens. As the papers consolidated and relied upon fewer feeds the overall impression people got was negativity. One only has to look at Newsweek and Time to see fewer people read comprehensive articles (not to mention their balance disappeared….)
Just like a bunch of little kids in a schoolyard, people tend to trumpet other's failures. Combine that with deliberate efforts, such as pushing political agendas, or even evangelization… and it gets overbearing quickly.
There's a lot of great stuff out there as well, but we don't normally run over to our neighbor to tell them our child learned how to walk, or got straight A's or slammed a homerun. The mommyblogs do that and there's a ton of them out there. Check out the http://thepioneerwoman.com/ – she gets almost 9 million page views per month!
You're right – humanity is broken, but I think Lorelle nails why we discuss this in her article. Even when it's bad, it brings out the best in others and conversations flow.
In that sense, all those things that look negative – consider them cries for help.
(Okay – this should have been a blog post.)
The same reason people slow down to view a car wreck. We like seeing the misery of others.
that's a great example. what shall we call it?blogging rubberneckers = bloggerneckers?i like it. i'm going to blog it. ancoti, you're the man.
Why didn't I see this comment before? I usually get notified of follow ups. Hmmm.
cracking up about @ryanseacrest spilling coffee on his blackberry earlier this week-he is huge on the google trends
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That is seriously one of the creepiest photos ever.
but it's so cool…!
several of the blogs i read right now are by folks who share when they screw up…and somehow that gives me hope!
(yours, los', ben arments, and larry norman (http://willingwriter.blogspot.com/2009/03/bananas... )are some of those blogs )
o.0 That is so true a lot of the blogosphere. And it goes even beyond that, some bloggers want you to screw up to the point they will make up screwed up topics to blog about and attribute that to you. Blogging can be a very clear window into human frailty and sin. It's also a window into our (mankind's) attempt to make sense out of a fallen world. A lot of criticism (fair and unfair) is born out of our innate sense that we aren't living in the perfection we were Created for.
But thank goodness not every blog is about that. I am a new reader to yours and appreciate your content.
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if only someone was there at the time to tell u that shortly you'd be blogging about a christian joke plugin and how it's FAIL…..