On not blogging

discovering that I have an audience was the worst thing that happened to me as a blogger. I can't take a break without feeling guilty and explaining why I'm away. Also, I noticed that I tame down my comments because of who may be reading instead of lobbing my ideas into the void like I used to do. Caution and consideration is not a bad thing but it does take the fun out of it somewhat.

Needless to say we talk about blogs on my show (actually we should have you up for an interview sometime), but I guess that doesn't count.

Very interesting analogy, the mainstream's gradual acceptance/acnowledgement of blogs/hip-hop and how it has affected those inside each movement.

Long after Rapper's Delight it was still rare to find hip-hop in regular commercial rotation, beyond a little Run-DMC here and there, plus one or two others. Even through the early 90s they still had the loathsome practice of playing "rap free edits" of songs that had both rapping and singing, such as airing "Groove is in the Heart" with Q Tip chopped out.

Throughout most of the 80s I still got a rush whenever hip-hop got mentioned, even if the coverage was distorted and dismissive (as it almost always was). My reaction would be "well naturally they don't get it yet, but how amazing is it that they feel compelled to acknowledge our existence at all?" There was a sense of achievement in seeing them recognize that our movement was too important to be ignored, a thrill in making them look our way even if they clearly couldn't comprehend what they were looking at.

Since then of course that excitement has faded, and turned to resentment as we whistfully recall how much better the scene was when we were still invisible to mainstream eyes, and it all truly belonged to us.

I guess all kids want to be grownup, and grownups wish they could be kids again?

Yeah madison, being too aware of your audience can be crippling, I learned that in my other blog at livejournal.

I will try not to geek out about the idea of getting to visit your show. I am supposed to be cool here. Like Fonzie. Cool.

We're definitely in the same "they don't get it, but they spelled the name right!" phase of mainstream blog coverage right now. No matter, we'll have our Walk This Way, we'll have our Krush Groove. I am loathe to imagine the inevitable blog movie, but I suspect that they at least won't be forced to shoehorn minneapolis funk into the mix.

But yeah, being too aware of one's audience is a problem, it seems like, as in music, all creative people get stifled by being aware of the people who are watching them. It is possible, though, to step back and refocus on the parts that are most exciting. Hopefully we can all remember how to do that.

Cool like Fonzie? He jumped a shark, you know.

Hey, it's your blog. You don't owe your readers anything. You gave freely, they took freely. You can open or close the tap any time, as often as you want.

I certainly I find that I can't blog my best ideas anymore- they're worth too much money to just throw out into the ether in a big, selfless show of love for my fellow man.

Sometimes I'll throw a big, meaty idea out there, just to keep the anarchic edge going...

But blogging is not just a cool utopian toy anymore. It's a business- and you being VP Marketing Movable Type Guy knows this as well as anyone.

I'd like to see more dicussions about blogs in a nasty, brutish, self-interested, Hobbesian capitalist perspective- the blog utopian-idealists are starting to get on my nerves.

I'd like to think that there's some kind of understood rule when surfing to a weblog, one that says "the person behind this is still a person and has to maintain their life in addition to this blog." Therefore, it could be redundant to leave an explanation-of-absense. But then again, this could all be in my universe :)

I agree, Anil, that blogging is no longer considered a new fad and that now some mainstay bloggers are taking time away from their blogs to work on the academic, technical, and media-related things attached to it. There's a lot to say about it; it's very exciting and has a lot of long-term potential to be THE way for people to build communities and relationships in a society with more people, more choices, more ideas, etc.

No explanations needed; the work you're doing is helping the other bloggers gain an understanding of why they are blogging and why they want to keep blogging; or vice-versa. Because you put yourself out there and tried stuff out, more folks out there are able to decide what they want to say and what they want to read.

Okay, done waxing. Keep up the great work!

Thanks for a good post, Anil, very thoughtful, and with lots of strong points...especially like the Rapper's Delight reference. We have to try to keep it fun, especially if this is (part of) our business.

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Apparently you can unlock Motorola mobile phones simply using the IMEI number, cutting out the need for a USB cable to link your phone to your PC. Just used it with my razr v3 and a rokr e1, and it certainly works, but what do i do now with an unlocked phone?
It's for sale at 5 Pounds (UK), and i was wondering whether anyone had used it before. Sorry if i've posted in the wrong section!. Please Help!!