Oct 14, 2009
And They Say That Content Is King
I was born in December of 1981. Because of a couple of educational loopholes, (and the fact that I could already read) I started kindergarten when I was four. This was a lucky break for me. I found that it was easier to blend in as someone who was younger, than it would have been if I one of those kids that was almost a whole year older than everyone else. It wasn’t until college that it was a pain to be the youngest. Especially at 18 and 21. But that’s a story for another day.
My birth in 1981 leaves me on the edge. I’m on the cusp of the Gen X/Gen Y split. Sociologically, I completely identify with Gen Y. I boomeranged. I’m happily not married. I’m a job hopper. I fit all the criteria.
You would think that I would jump for joy at the prospect of having hundreds of Gen Y blogger feeds delivered to my Google Reader every day. You would think that I would be able to identify with, and be encouraged, educated and inspired by the writings of my generational compatriots.
Then I go to Brazen Careerist, which no doubt has given me access to a bunch of, in some cases, underrated bloggers who I love, but sometimes I scan the titles and think, “It this it?”
This is the best and the brightest? These are who we “feature”, who we ask to guest post, who get best blogger awards?
Are Gen Y bloggers only allowed to talk about Gen Y, social media, the internet, marketing, and entrepreneurship?
Ya know, I love a REALLY GREAT post about any of those subjects, but the “Top 5 Ways to Hack Blah Blak Blah” and the “Gen Y is different because yak yak yak” has been done to death.
Seriously. It’s dead.
Unless you have something COMPLETELY new and different to share, stop writing about being a member of Gen Y, social media, HR, marketing, career planning, or any number of boring and/or overdone topics. But if you blog about these topics because it’s your passion or brand, or it’s what you do for work, or you want to get noticed by an industry insider, for God’s sake, make it interesting for the rest of us.
How can you make your blog posts more interesting? Make me care.
Your life is interesting. Relationships are interesting. Building bridges is interesting. Having a conversation is interesting. Telling a great story is interesting. Making a difference is interesting. Exposing stupidity is interesting. Overcoming is interesting. Making me jealous is interesting. Being inspiring is interesting. Being funny is interesting.
For goodness sakes, if you are going to write for the web, say something meaningful. Compel me to subscribe to you. Be fucking interesting.
Great post — I agree with you. Obv. I read Brazen and Gen Y blogs every day, but I do get tired sometimes when they all start repeating the same ideas over and over again. There are a lot of crap blogs on the internet — it takes time to find the gems. A lot of the ones you linked to are great and are blogs I keep coming back to because they never get boring (thanks for linking to me, btw!
But I have no interest in reading the millionth blog post on Gen Y/marketing/social media/personal branding/entrepreneurship at all. Especially entrenpreneurship/Gen Y — I feel like that combo has been all over the place lately and it’s getting really tired…
Nisha´s last blog ..Who Decided Being a Woman Is a “Pre-Existing Condition”?
This post has already been done. Ryan Holiday did it better:
http://www.ryanholiday.net/archives/post_30.phtml
In fact, the premise of this post has been beaten into the ground as much as some of the topics you’ve discussed in your post. (And you’re right, many of them have been recycled WAY too many times.)
There’s a natural cycle of things. As some bloggers grow into more compelling writers, there are other writers filling that newbie void. Who’s calling them the best?
Many of the bloggers you include in your last paragraph there are featured on the “Top 10 Gen Y Blog List.” Some of the stuff they write is crap. A lot of the stuff I write is crap. BUT… they’re putting themselves out there. (In my mind that puts them in a small percentage of people trying to differentiate themselves.) And sometimes it’s because they’re learning from their own writing. The fact that it’s public is just an accountability thing perhaps?
There’s a really simple solution to the problem you’re facing…
Stop reading it.
Ryan Stephens´s last blog ..One Size DOES NOT Fit All
@Nisha: Agreed. I’m disappointed when I read bad blogs. Maybe I should just keep reading my old favorites, and stop looking for new stuff.
@Ryan:Never heard of Ryan Holiday. I’ll have to check him out.
You would be surprised (or maybe not) at how often I get about half way through a post and realize that it’s already been done. Or the number of times that I’ll have a couple of posts scheduled to publish only to have someone in my Reader beat me to the punch and publish something uncannily similar. That kind of stuff happens.
And I’m not saying that all the bloggers in the Gen Y top ten are crap. My Reader and your list have some in common. I’m just tired of wading through the crap to get to the gems, as Nisha so eloquently put it.And I have removed lots of folks from my Reader for being boring and tired.
I don’t see the differentiation if some many say the same thing. And when did putting yourself out there- even when you’re crap- become important and praise worthy?
Putting yourself out there isn’t important unless you ARE different, better, etc.
Becoming a better writer is an important goal, heck, it’s a goal of mine. And I’m willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt for being a new writer. But when I see that someone has been writing/blogging for years and I fail to see the growth…that’s when I have a problem.
I can understand your frustration and why you wrote this post. However, I tend to agree with Ryan Stephens that you find a blogging niche without some repetition. I think your main point is a good one though – dare to write something different and break outside of the paradigm of a Gen-Y blogger. I think part of the problem is that there are a lot of “Gen-Y” bloggers who write about interesting things but they don’t identify as Gen-Y bloggers and probably slip under your radar. Finding good content is tough, good luck!
In terms of putting yourself out there I liken it to seeing someone overweight out walking. Yes, they’re overweight. No, they’re not jogging. But they’re also not sitting on their couch. I think they could do more, do better, but I still commend the fact that they’re doing something.
I think you bring up some good points especially with respect to content getting ‘tired.’ I think that sometimes it’s the author, and I think it’s sometimes that we get tired of reading it. Our own tastes change as we grow. I used to read Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog and Chris Brogan’s blog religiously.
They both consistently deliver solid content, but I have full grasp (at least I think I do) of a lot of what they write about. For that reason their content grew a little tired for me, and I’ve since switched to blogs that cover different topics.
Ryan Stephens´s last blog ..One Size DOES NOT Fit All
@Ashley: You are right. Some of the best Gen Y bloggers never mention their age. Being Gen Y isn’t a part of their thing. Some of them are on Brazen, some I’ve found through Twitter or from stalking comments
@Ryan: I completely agree with your points here: >>I think they could do more, do better, but I still commend the fact that they’re doing something.< <
and
>> I think that sometimes it’s the author, and I think it’s sometimes that we get tired of reading it. Our own tastes change as we grow.>>
Once upon a time, I must have loved all the Gen Y babble because my GReader was full of it. Now, the topics that I most love are tangentially, if at all, related to what I was reading 1 or 2 years ago.
First off, thanks for linking to me! I’m surprised and happy
I don’t consider myself a “Gen Y” blogger. But…somehow I end up interacting with all other Gen Yers. I think it’s because of the similar age but my interests are not really related to Gen Y at all; I’m more interested in political science and human rights.
Besides that point, I definitely agree with you that all these topics have been overdone. I think people who are interested in social media, marketing, PR, etc AUTOMATICALLY gravitate towards blogging. You don’t see as many “Gen Y” bloggers who are in the financial or legal worlds blogging because they don’t really need it as a marketing tool. So it’s a self selecting group.
Moreover I think you can bring something unique to these fields as well. Writing a blog isn’t always about being unique. Honestly EVERYTHING has been said before about everything. It’s really hard to be innovative about anything, period. You think my blog is interesting, but honestly there are tons of human rights blogs who cover this stuff better than I do! You just don’t know about these blogs because you haven’t explored that “category” much.
So all I’m saying is that there are niches in blogging. There is Gen Y blogs, yes, but then there are also human rights blogs, social change blogs, entrepreneurship blogs, personal/funny blogs, career blogs, etc. So in each one of these niches…there’s really no being unique.
All you can do is write the best you can and about what you’re passionate about. I think being “unique” is a lost cause.
Akhila´s last blog ..Be the change: Dream Education, by Carlos Miceli
@Akhila: You’re welcome!
I think I found your blog through Elisa @Ophelia’s Webb.
And since I seldom read blogs about human rights, you were a breath of fresh air. Just like Sam Davidson and Social Butterfly and Rosetta Thurman were interesting and new because I didn’t read a lot of non-profit blogs.
It is extremely hard to say something new, all the great ideas have already been taken. However, I believe that our experiences should make what we write about new (even if it’s new just to us.) Like you said, when we enter a niche, it’s hard to be unique because you’re so close to the topic. But something about what you’re saying NEEDS to be interesting.
For example, I often read the Art of Nonconformity, not because I’m necessarily interested in traveling the world; I read it because I find his experiences new and interesting.
I read Seth Godin even though he writes about the same thing every day, not because I’m interested in marketing; I read it because he connects ideas that I’ve never thought of before.
I read Penelope Trunk not because I actually think she’s the best career writer; I read her because I wanna know what’s going to happen with her and the farmer next
There’s two things that annoy me about bad blogs and they are 1) shoddy writing and 2) recycled ideas. Blogs like Akhila’s, or Penelope Trunk, or Modite, have mastered both of those (good writing AND fresh ideas) and that’s what keeps people coming back to them. Not everyone can do both well, which is why I’m not always a believer in the idea that *everyone* should have a blog.
I also think that Ryan is right that this happens all the time and you should stop reading the crap. I used to have my Greader full of Gen Y blogs and dropped more than half of them recently because my interests changed. I don’t want to read about marketing/gen y/entrepreneurship/careers all the time so why force yourself to?
Nisha´s last blog ..Why We Changed Our Twitter Avatars
@Nisha: When I think about this post, in the context of your comment, it is likely that the blogs that we consider “crap” are golden for someone else.
There are blogs with hundreds and thousands of subscribers that to me or you, wouldn’t be any good, but SOMEONE is reading them.
So maybe this is a case of “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder”. And we just don’t see the beauty.
Rebecca and P. Trunk generally writes really great stuff, but I love it when they veer away from professional and get personal– those posts are my favorites.(Maybe it’s just me.)
I agree that everyone shouldn’t have a blog. Maybe everyone should have an online presence of some sort, but maybe twitter, friendfeed, facebook or tumblr would be enough?
There are days when my blogs are the albatross around my neck. I hate them and I wish they would go away, but sometimes when I’ve written something great, they make my day
LOVE this post. I do agree with Ryan that there are some bloggers that we read “for a season”. I get that. But some bloggers seem flat out lazy when it comes to trying to find a new/interesting/creative twist on a subject. I love Penelope Trunk’s advice to write on the fringe of a subject and I wish more people (myself included) would do it.
Marie´s last blog ..Pretty sure this would be classified as Narcissitic Personality Disorder
As someone who has an entire series on her blog reviewing other blogs, I can identify with the redundancy and staleness that can overwhelm your reader. I read approximately 50-75 posts a day now. For many, I skim to see if the post is worthwhile. I skim a lot more now.
I think that even if people are saying the same thing, it’s important to read different opinions on similar topics to fully understand all aspects of an issue. My post that you linked was actually inspired by the folks I linked to. I took in lots of different arguments to form my own.
However I definitely appreciate your call to action – for bloggers to not “get by” on writing the easy stuff. To be interesting and earn our readers attention.
Elisa´s last blog ..Global Warming? But It’s Getting Colder…
@Marie: This post has been brewing for a while, and talking to you last weekend confirmed what I was feeling.
I totally agree about “writing on the fringe” and you totally do on McKinney Oates Cereal. Even on the Nashville Marriage blog, you throw in a curve ball sometimes. I love it.
Going to add “writing on the fringe” to my list of things to think about.
@Elisa: I love your blog crush posts because you highlight bloggers that I don’t know, who have interesting, NEW things to say.
Honestly, I think my “taste” has changed. I don’t want to read “how-to” blogs anymore. I want to read about how “the author” is doing something, whether it’s starting a business, surviving a relationship, getting over an illness, LIVING.