The idea of professional blogging sounds like the coolest thing ever. You get paid to write your ideas and put them online every day. You’re paid to interact with readers in the comments and, sometimes you get a side of Facebook and Twitter. What could be more awesome?
Unfortunately, professional blogging actually looks something like this:
Blogging is a lonely job with long hours. You might be stuck with your laptop more than you’d like to admit. In what could be best termed as an unhealthy obsession, you’ll check your smart phone more than you make eye contact with other people in a day.
Most of us aren’t idea factories, and we have to work to pull out the true gems of wisdom and shine them into a polish. On a daily basis, this can be maddening.
Bloggers aren’t super stars. The baristas still fuck up our orders at Starbucks. We don’t make enough cash to swim in it. We upset people with one thing we write, and people upset us with their reactions.
Still, for all the crap, the long hours, and the crazy people, we’re given the honor and privilege to be able to write nearly anything we want online, any day of the week, at any time for anyone to read. In what other time and place could that happen?
So be grateful, blogger. For all the madness you endure, your ideas, whether grand or small, have the potential to change the world in an instant.
Astronaut, Fireman, Professional Blogger, Cowboy, Dinosaur Wrangler, Chippendales Dancer…
The fantasies of youth.
I knew I should have worked at Chippendale’s.
Or maybe if I was Chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers…. *sigh*
Big fan of that pic, I think i spend more time in front of a computer than out in the real world lately. Though to be honest, being able to maintain your own schedule is fairly refreshing even if sometimes its stressful.
My schedule is maintained by how much time I can spend in front of an LCD screen.
I dont appreciate you using the picture of me in your posts :-p
HA!
“Still, for all the crap, the long hours, and the crazy people, we’re given the honor and privilege to be able to write nearly anything we want online, any day of the week, at any time for anyone to read. In what other time and place could that happen?”
Well, except when you crap on a social media book’s content…
In some cultures, it’s an honor and privilege to get crapped on.
Do professional bloggers hover over a laptop screen without a coffee mug in site? I thought it was a staple, like a mouse to a desktop computer.
I drink much more cola than coffee. I’m sure it just depends on the blogger’s personal tastes.
Who the hell gets paid?!? And where do I sign up??
I hear Gawker pays. And I usually make $6 a week from selling a couple t-shirts.
I would die inside if one of my kids told me “I want to be a blogger when I grow up.” blogging is a lifestyle choice, not a profession
Waddaya mean blogging is a lifestyle choice? Everybody knows that bloggers are born that way.
)
So true. I was born a heartless, satirical monster of a person with a Wacom tablet and a dream.
Don’t pull that line out! You’re just trying to use science to justify blogger-blogger marriage, and we’re having none of that. Imagine the birth defects!
ME TOO.
Good points.
Fun fashion fact: the person in the picture is dressed in blogger’s business casual.
Exactly. We all blog in the nude. If that isn’t ugly, I don’t know what is.
Jay, your headline reminded me of an old Steve Martin album I once owned: Comedy Is Not Pretty. I never fully appreciated what he meant by that until now.
So you read my earlier post from this week?
you guys just might learn a thing or two from us bloggers here in the 3rd world. some of us come out on tv and get invited to international festivals of this and that. it may not be so much fun for some bloggers in the us, but over here, we get stuff we could never afford. the most “glamorous” blogging niches in the Philippines are:
1. travel - they literally go on vacations for a living. even starting bloggers get airline sponsorships after a year.
2. fashion - of course we’re not all brianboys, but the lot of them get to have what they want and even get paid to wear it.
3. technology - a very influential group of bloggers. they get all the gadgets before it’s even sold here, plus travel and other gigs like magazine and newspaper columns, product endorsements, tv appearances, etc. practically near-celebrity status.
4. food bloggers - well, we just get free food. some of us get product endorsements even tv shows, but not all get to be as lucky. the occasional international travel to exotic resorts around asia to go on food festivals is something we all look forward to. consultancy jobs with food manufacturers are what most of us are batting for.
because google is a us company that counts adsense in dollars, that’s everything times 45 for us and because we’re 3rd world and everything is cheap, $100 a month can go a very long way. Most of us have day jobs and the money we make from the adsense is just icing on the cake.
and i’m just referring to the blogger-hobbyists. the professional bloggers have it even better.
That’s it. I’m moving to the Philippines.
Will you marry me?
I’ve been waiting for you to ask that all my life. Of course I will.
Then again, some of us pro bloggers are also focused on balance, so we figure out what needs to be done then spend our energy minimizing the time it takes to do it. I have already written blog entries thru the end of February so I can take a week off and not worry about new content showing up. It’s doable, people, just put your energy into balancing work/life, rather than making sure you’re the one who breaks every story or has deep, thoughtful commentary on every event that transpires in your field.
Blogging is certainly an honor and a privilege. I do it passionately and enjoy every word I write and every comment, tweet or Facebook share I get. Is it glamorous? Maybe not, but it is rewarding, fulfilling and lots of fun and sometimes it can make a difference