Why do you blog?
As I’m left holding the reins of AR I got to thinking about how I got into blogging.
I work in the computer industry so blogging, tweeting, facesitting, weren’t unusual terms for me. However I am of a certain age and experience that I don’t jump and get the latest and greatest or try out new fads as soon as they come out. I had an Internet presence in the 1990s and had a “home page” so I was there at the start, but I’ve grown out of all the techy stuff, not that I don’t like watching the Gadget Show on Five. An example – I’m laughed at for my phone, its not got a camera, no MP3, no games, no apps, nothing except the ability to text and make phone calls. So I didn’t look into this blogging malarkey thinking it as a place where only nutters go.
Having said that I have been quite opinionated for some time. Grumpy Old Men comes to mind, though I’m not that old. But I only had my family to vent my frustrations out on. I’ve been left leaning most of my life but as I got older and wiser I realised that the socialist ideals were full of ideals but no substance. Also as I got older and wiser the authoritarian attitudes of the socialists became more and more overbearing as I found that the best way to do things is to take responsibility for your own actions. I mean, if you make a mistake at work you take the hit, you don’t say that it was your manager’s fault. Likewise if you make a mistake in life you can’t say it was your government’s fault.
Another factor that made me head away from the left, but not the right, was science and it’s basis – research. The process of checking everything and looking into the facts and figures of any story. So as I did this on many left success stories I found that it was only a veneer of socialism. Underneath there was nothing to back it up. Many of the figures would be cherry picked or alternatively ignored to push the socialism is great angle. When I looked into the background many times the truth was nothing like the story was told.
As the saying goes, “Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head“. When young the your emotion control your life, when older you naturally gain more experience and your head controls your life. So I have grown up.
It wasn’t until early 2010 that I first came across the term Libertarianism and realised that what it stood for is personal responsibility, common sense, little state, big society, self reliance, tolerance for others, and even family values. It doesn’t mean no advertising as some philosophers seem to think. Having just started my blog as a form of self release I still felt a bit self-conscious but as I left more and more comments on various blogs of all flavours and as I wasn’t told off for being a twat straight away I gained more confidence that I was thinking the right things. Then I found AR and saw the light! It was like a breath of fresh air amongst all the dry overtly political blogs whose only aim was to bash the opposite side but who are only preaching to the converted.
How did I end up helping run AR so quickly? Being in the right place at the right time basically and surviving a grilling from Anna as she checked me out! I’m not better than any of you, in fact AR runs on everyone being better than us authors as you can correct us, point out additional facts, and add detail. We only start you off with a topic of conversation. Along with Andrew Withers and Gildas and many others we are only the bartenders whilst Anna the landlady takes a bit of a rest. If you feel like submitting a story get in touch with us.
So why do you blog? You don’t need write your life story, but what kicked you into doing it? What made you angry enough to start, or are you just a plain egotist. How do you blog? At work or in the evenings? On a phone or laptop or desktop?
SBML
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February 9, 2011 at 23:25 -
Very occasionally and for me rather than for other people. It is an attempt to clarify my own thoughts and to get things off my chest.
I have been following climate blogs for a while. WUWT for example. I got sucked into reading “political” blogs in the run up to the general election.
In the end I have a blog but do not consider myself a blogger, it is much too erratic to be that.
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February 9, 2011 at 23:31 -
@annaraccoon2010 gives the dead men running through my head a voice.. and the stick men… I’m mad – ignore me xxx
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February 9, 2011 at 23:36 -
I blog because I needed to write down what was hurting inside. I use humour a lot… It saved my life once in a very bad place and it kept me going in the asylum that tried to repair the damage.
Blogging has changed my life… I will write more about that one day and let you in on what has happened (it’s all very good)
Blogs will change the world no more than a copper coated piece of lead could… In the right hands they are called bullets. I like this blog – so does Derek my Rubber Band (he is red, the postman dumped him)
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February 9, 2011 at 23:47 -
Got sick and fed up of seeing the UKBA harass, intimidate, rob British Citizens and decided to stand up and be counted. Not only that, l wanted to give future shoppers as much advice and help as l could so they didn’t fall foul of UKBA’s unjust and illegal tactics. From there it’s grown to battling the UKBA full frontal. l’ll continue until l think l can do no more and then just leave the site up and turn the comments off although contact e-mail will still be active.
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February 9, 2011 at 23:59 -
I suppose I really started as after being unemployed for a while I needed something to do. Anyone will tell you one of the worst things about being out of work (even if they don’t admit it) is the lack of routine.
I’d read a few blogs namely JuliaM, Mark Wadsworth, Old Holburn and thought that looks OK.
But really I did it for me, Believe me, I am grateful that people read my ramblings and find them perhaps interesting or entertaining esp. ones about GIANT COCKSBut really at first it was about giving myself a routine, I would do one post a day, it would be as well written as I could make it and that would be it.
That people actually read it was a bonus.
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February 10, 2011 at 00:26 -
Just for fun for me too as well. I have also been known to publish pictures of my BIG FAT COCK too.
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February 10, 2011 at 00:15 -
I started by reading Guido, and then the people that Guido linked to, and then the people that they linked to, and so on, until I thought “I can do that!” I started the blog purely for my own satisfaction, as a way of talking to myself that doesn’t worry the neighbours quite as much. When I got my first hits, and then comments, I was gobsmacked. My blog is a bit like my mind – all over the place – and so I doubt if I will ever pick up a massive readership, but that’s not why I am doing it anyway. At one point I split the blog up, and had a separate blog for all the motorbike stuff, but it didn’t work out and I recombined them. I have some regular commenters who enliven the place and keep me on the right track, and that’s good enough for me.
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February 10, 2011 at 00:47 -
I wrote it down like we do…
http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/2010/12/why-do-we-do-this.html
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February 10, 2011 at 05:43 -
I started by commenting, and noted that often, I saw a story in the paper and thought ‘Oooh, I hope someone blogs that so I can comment on it!’.
After a while, the penny dropped…
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February 10, 2011 at 05:47 -
“How do you blog? At work or in the evenings? On a phone or laptop or desktop?”
And since no-one’s answered this yet, yes, and all three!
Though commenting is easy on a phone (apart from some sites that the iPhone doesn’t like, and won’t give me the option of my profile if I’m not on my own home wi-fi), a blogpost is much harder.
Probably something to do with the tiny screen and the lack of right-click options. The iPad is easier size-wise, but still suffers from that lack of functionality.
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February 10, 2011 at 08:14 -
Although I don’t actually have a blog of my own, -time is pressing in my case, plus the other half says not to- no I’m not being bullied, we just see eye to eye on things and I understand her reasons – I nevertheless try to grab a moment to read and comment on a few good blogs. I have to be frank, I didn’t understand what, for example, this one was all about, until a good few months of reading changed my perspective. Now I’m a man with a melted and softened heart, truly – I never realised there were actually some decent people left, in this day and age, people that care. All I’ve dealt with is mostly utter twats and maybe one per cent decent folks, in daily life, for so long it had jaded me.
There’s your answer in my case!
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February 10, 2011 at 08:46 -
I’m not a blogger but an avid reader of them.
What I like about them is they are so up to date.
A scandal or calamity happens this morning and its immediately leapt on and discussed.
I used to read Private Eye but now find its often dated and the articles have been done and dusted last week.
So, thanks to the ones that do from the ones that don’t. -
February 10, 2011 at 09:01 -
I blog during the course of my mouse-catching activities. I do so because I’m the only moggy in the area who’s interested enough to do it. Life is getting more stupid here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria each passing day. There are so many examples of the window-licking idiocy of the ruling classes – and the pantomime that goes with it – that simply beg to be mocked and derided.
Oh – and I’ve come to realise – like SBML – that socialism is nothing a bag of maggots – like those who make millions of groats from it. We’ve tasted its bitter fruits, and we long-suffering creatures have endured enough of its cant and hypocrisy – not that I have any more respect for Caedmeron and the Tree Faction or their Liberationist bedfellows; they all treat the people who elect them as if they’re cash cows to be milked, herded, controlled and patronised. Idiots.
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February 10, 2011 at 09:06 -
Friend put me up to setting up a blog, “just for a laugh”, and it quickly became a sort of virtual pub table for a few friends now living very far apart. So far it’s brought about one transatlantic marriage and several new friendships
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February 10, 2011 at 09:44 -
I’ve always been a bit of a news junkie – that fed very quickly into reading blogs, especially Guido and Old Holborn, which I found particularly refreshing compared to the inane drivel that is spoon-fed to us by the BBC to keep us quiet. I shared their sense of anger and frustration with the current system – of how successive Governments just nanny us into submission, presuming that they know best for us.
I started commenting quite a bit, both on blogs and to my friends and family. Someone suggested that I should start writing my opinions down, so my blog was born.
I get a few people – mainly friends and family – reading it, although my presence on Twitter is now increasing. Sometimes I get a comment on my blog, or a re-tweet, which makes me sadly giddy with excitement. I have a quiet life, really!
I mainly write on my PC, either at work in my lunch break, or at home.
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February 10, 2011 at 12:25 -
Been slack this year but I have found that if I try to force it, I write crap. When the inspiration takes me then I need to write it down, and if people read it and comment then even better! I was really inspired by Obo and Old Holborn at first, then this blog and JuliaM’s later on. The king however is Leg-Iron (for me anyway) – if one day I write one piece as good as the things he writes I’ll be a very happy man. I’ve learnt a huge amount from the blogs I follow and I thought maybe I could do the same in a small way with my own blog.
The other reason I blog is is, every time I start in about politics or whatever my friends/family roll their eyes and say things to the effect of “he’s ranting again”, and I got tired of it. Because I love them I don’t want to change them, but in blogging I have found a community of people who are much more informed and fired up about these subjects than me, and I love that.
I’m sick of being lied to about “cuts”, manbearpig or whatever the latest scam is. The bloggers I follow cut through that, and in my small way I endeavour to do the same. And it’s a lot of fun.
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February 10, 2011 at 13:44 -
I started blogging not long after having a baby, a time when every man and his dog sticks his nose into your business. I’m a journalist anyway, so thought that letting off steam in the form of a blog would be a good idea. It’s all utter gobbledegook and I literally have no idea why anyone reads it.
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February 10, 2011 at 15:08 -
“So Why Do I Blog” as my tagline says, Blog because you love to, not because you have to. I do blog with passion, I blog about blogging so for me it’s about passing on my mistakes and how to avoid them, teaching and learning. Building relationships and making friends.
“How Do I Blog” badly some would say, only kidding. Normally with a laptop or desktop. I have started stealing/ borrowing my daughters ipad, which could be the future.
Thanks
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February 10, 2011 at 15:22 -
I was a commenter on Peter Hitchens’ site. I was lured away by a fellow reader into blog land.
Anyway. It’s a way of getting about whilst sitting on my arse and practising my guitar. This is what I recorded this morning. Hope you like it.
(I’m not in a hall or anything like that btw. I’m looking at a pile of washing in my spare room.)
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February 10, 2011 at 16:02 -
So I’m not the only one with a “Basic” mobile phone! I still use an NEC G9, or to be more accurate, one made from a collection of others… It works (thanks to an extending antenna) where no modern phone will, and that’s more important to me than being able to read bar codes, or diagnose diseases and all the other things that seem to be standard now.
As for blogging, some of you may have noticed my efforts at Max Farquars, largely due to some persuasion by a certain Expat in Melbourne. Apparently the stuff I dig up has kept many in laughter of a an evening, and lord knows we need some cheering up. I’m not sure about blogging in my own right – there are so many excellent, detailed efforts out there already, but who knows what the future may bring?
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February 10, 2011 at 17:24 -
Honestly, mate, that was never supposed to be any kind of arm twist. Just a bit of light hearted recognition that you’ve been the man behind some good blogposts here and there and made no few good comments. That said it’s good to see you blogging at Max’s so I’m not feeling guilty.
And why do I blog? Like others I started by reading other blogs and commenting here and there but what made me start my own seems a little vague. I’ll have to give that some thought and have a look at my early posts to try and remember what set me off, but I can summarise it by saying that I keep it up because it hurts less than repeatedly smacking my head on the desk and it’s cheaper than firing a shotgun at the wall.
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February 10, 2011 at 17:42 -
Why do I blog? Erm… quite simply, it’s because I saw a lot of other people doing it and fancied having a go myself. There’s not much else to it.
Inspirations include Ambush Predator, Obnoxio The Clown, Twenty Major and Iain Dale back in the days before he became a tribal Tory who defended everything they did.
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February 10, 2011 at 18:34 -
February 10, 2011 at 21:37 -
February 11, 2011 at 06:31 -
An egotist? Giving lesser mortals the benefit of supreme wisdom and a planet’s-worth of mirth condensed in to a single quip is an act of self-sacrifice worthy of sainthood and a Nobel prize.
And please put my favourite on the juke box, “If I ruled the world”. -
February 11, 2011 at 12:29 -
I started blogging after going on OH’s first little walk – having been reading quite a few blogs before and decided enough stuff was annoying me I should write it down before my friends started hiding from me – so pretty much just doing it for my own benefit. Blog either in the evening or in my lunch hour when other stuff permits – from a desktop machine.
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February 11, 2011 at 13:16 -
I started by accident. By 2005 I had started to leave occasional comments on other people’s blogs, most of them as it happened on the “Blogger” platform. Wanting a more consistent and “provable” on-line identity than “Anonymous”, I signed up for a Blogger account. I think the registration dialogue was a bit different then, and I didn’t realize that the process would automatically create a blog as well as a username; I had assumed there were two distinct steps. Having acquired said blog, I put up several trial rants to see how it all worked, and then abandoned it. A few months later, when I was on the point of tidying up (ie deleting) the blog, I discovered that people had actually been reading this rubbish, and I was, as they say, hooked.
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February 11, 2011 at 17:22 -
I don’t blog, I rant. I suppose I’m like everyone else, I read blogs but didn’t comment, I didn’t have the confidence. Thanks to sites like OH, Anna, Obo, CR and scores of others my website slowly turned from a website to a rog (ranting blog).
It was just supposed to be an online archive of my rants and a place to release my anger, and to possibly make a few people smile here and there, but now that’s not enough any more so I’m branching out elsewhere.
I leave the proper blogging to the proper bloggers
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