
The Second Golden Age of Blogging - webdva
https://theotherlifenow.com/the-second-golden-age-of-blogging/
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_curious_
As someone with a long term interest in blogging/media/publishing, I tend to
gravitate towards such headlines, but I'm struggling to grasp the author's
point in this piece?

Did someone tell them "blogging is dead" so they went out and wrote a 500 word
defense? And while I do agree with the conclusion, some data would have been
nice to review, like the golden age vs. second golden age. Something more than
just pure conjecture.

~~~
KirinDave
It's a confusing piece that seems to be arguing that blogging had a dip in
relevance due to... well it's not stated. But now it's somehow back? As if
blogging hasn't been a quiet but critical substrate iterated on over and over
by both individuals and businesses.

I try not to be cynical about this but, within the cultural context of HN this
reads a lot more like someone is trying to write "mainstream tech interest"
articles get Other Life onto HN to submarine a ton of links to the new project
white-nationalist info (you may recall in 2018 they declared they felt the
political left was actually more rife for nationalist and fascist recruitment,
hence this seemingly sharp left interview with Moldbug and a shame-and-
sympathy piece about "internet trolls" in the roll).

~~~
DoreenMichele
_But now it 's somehow back?_

"Covid19: Giving us a new golden age of blogging as its silver lining."

;)

~~~
KirinDave
I'll believe those numbers jump when I see them. If I had to pick a media
winner in all this, it's podcasts.

~~~
DoreenMichele
So, apparently, sarcasm fail and signaling fail (that's what the winky is
for). Whoops.

Obviously, it's too early to draw such inferences. But it's exactly the right
time for people to write rambling nonsense while housebound and trying to
distract themselves from a global crisis.

~~~
_curious_
"But it's exactly the right time for people to write rambling nonsense while
housebound and trying to distract themselves from a global crisis."

ha. yeah. that and a lot of bloggers are (c19 times aside) just into hearing
themselves talk and/or intellectualizing the obvious. This act may be
selfishly/egotistically rewarding, but it doesn't do much to the extent of
capturing or keeping an audience.

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geocrasher
I'm a Gen-Xer. I blog. I like writing, and I enjoy public feedback. But this
article and its multiple references to how blogging is for the "intelligent"
and the "intellectually sophisticated" individual... I couldn't get past that
part. What a load of crap. Blogging is for anyone who wants to be read.

~~~
rchaud
I am Gen Y and was in college during the "Golden Age" of blogging. I had to
chuckle when I noticed that the author didn't mention a single blogger who got
big after 2010.

~~~
bickeringyokel
"There's too many to name!"is a pretty lazy cop out.

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rchaud
> Such people think, because they don’t know many institutionalized
> professionals who still blog, that blogging must be dead. What they don’t
> realize is that the credibility premium historically enjoyed by professional
> institutions is plummeting toward zero. This fact is so obvious to younger
> Millenials and Zoomers that it goes unremarked, undebated, because it is
> already baked-in to their reading/watching behaviors.

The idea that traditional news media is losing credibility to blogs has been
around since at least the 2004 US Presidential Election, which is when regular
people starting discovering blogs.

The web was a lot less populated then, and large sites did not attempt to
crowd out smaller sites by generating SEO-optimized content by the metric ton.
Bots didn't pollute commment sections to the point where organic communities
left out of exasperation. You could create a blog and be reasonably certain of
developing an audience. The idea of AOL-style walled gardens seemed deeply
outdated.

FFWD 10 years, and now the vast majority of internet activity occurs in walled
gardens, be it FB, IG, Twitter, Reddit, Spotify, YouTube, Twitch, you name it.
People don't even bookmark sites anymore, their muscle memory causes them to
open Reddit or FB and just mindlessly browse.

So you start a self-owned blog in 2020. The only way to direct traffic to it
is to also post on all the other walled gardens, because that's where the
people are. That sounds like a lot of addtional work just to get eyeballs on a
page.

~~~
pessimizer
> The only way to direct traffic to it is to also post on all the other walled
> gardens, because that's where the people are. That sounds like a lot of
> addtional work just to get eyeballs on a page.

But it doesn't sound like overly difficult or excessive work. There's no
reason to expect people to read your blog who don't know you; there's never
been a time in which (nonfiction) authors didn't do promotion through
engagement in public conversations.

If you start a blog or a podcast, you have to post elsewhere and show up on
other people's podcasts, write articles for established outlets, and try to
get TV guest spots if you're mainstream or corporate-friendly enough. You
might have to start as a good poster on a busy subreddit, or as a Trump reply
guy on Twitter. When doing this, you make sure that people (or potential
employers) who find you interesting or insightful can find their way back to
your personal outlet.

I don't see that system as very broken. The delegitimization of mainstream
outlets outside of party partisans and the older hasn't destroyed them, it
really just made them into _prominent blogs_ (often running on wordpress and
drupal no less.) So as traditional news media loses credibility to blogs, it
really was just a process of coming to a parity where they had to compete on
their own merits (links to administration and intelligence officials.)

edit: Those links are the actual _cause_ of mainstream delegitimization -
they're maintained by the willingness of those outlets to float government
stories without any independent corroboration, and through friendly op-eds
that help people and groups they want to maintain access to. I don't think
this is a new process; its a balance between getting insider information and
helping those insiders maintain their positions that these outlets have always
made.

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blakesterz
"Those who think blogs are irrelevant today — usually Gen-Xers or older —
typically underestimate the degree to which real power has evacuated
traditional institutions such as academia and New York publishing houses. "

I don't know that I've seen anyone say blogging is irrelevant. Maybe I just
missed that. It's not the "new hotness" now, but it still gets the job done.
There's no shortage of people burned out on Twitter/Facebook/etc doing some
form of blogs now (I guess the new hotness is static sites again?) or blogging
at something like Medium. Though I honestly have no idea how popular Medium
really is. I never see it outside of HN, but I certainly don't have eyes
everywhere.

I've had a blog since the 90s and I still find my feedreader the best way to
keep up with the news that matters to me. It's not all blogs, but it's mostly,
and the writing being done on blogs is just as good and relevant now as it was
15-20 years ago.

~~~
rchaud
I think what the author means is that it's irrelevant for people who are
considering blogging as a stepping stone to something bigger...a book deal, a
conference speaking gig, influencer marketing, etc.

It sounds like your blog is a personal one, so you might not have treated it
as such.

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DubiousPusher
> but writing and therefore blogging for the most intellectually sophisticated

Oh boy

~~~
KirinDave
I know white nationalists were swinging for the intellectual left, but this
feels really heavy-handed for someone who's clearly got a lot of practice.

~~~
pjc50
I wondered "What's the white nationalist angle on this?", then clicked through
the article and saw a reference to Curtis Yarvin and Instapundit :(

~~~
KirinDave
Fascinating seeing Yarvin start signaling a "leftist" identity tho. They
really weren't kidding at their recruitment pivot.

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dangus
Blogging is just another tool, and one that will probably never go away.

People who want to publish their voice often use a multifaceted approach. I
have been directed to various blogs by personalities I discovered on social
media. The blog serves as a permanent, long form version of their content.

If you're _really_ looking to get your voice out there, you're probably
posting to multiple places - Facebook, Instagram, blogs, YouTube, or whatever
else fits your particular brand of content.

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robotron
Social media links have to lead somewhere - not just videos and memes. Blogs
fuel a lot of that.

