I’ve had at least six blogs, and deleted two of them. I don’t remember the title of the first. Blogging was THE trend in the early twenty-first century. It was an amateur effort, in the best possible way, in the true sense of the Latin origin, amare, to love, and amator, lover.
It didn’t last. It couldn’t. The cowgirls and anarchists faded from the scene. Publishing companies co-opted bloggers. Blogging turned from a labor of love into a publisher’s marketing opportunity. The naive bloggers became shills.
Mind you, there are many sophisticated bloggers. My personal “circle” of bloggers, such as it is, prefers books published before this century, and distinguishes between reviews and marketing.
But I miss the early blogs, which were an “alternative” to the media. I don’t see that anymore. Remember when writers and editors of book reviews attacked bloggers for ruining criticism? The review publications have terminated the blogs they established in imitation of saucy blogs, because the new bloggers’ second- and third-rate imitations of their criticism provide no competition. (And, yes, there are some brilliant bloggers, as I’ve said before.)
Overall, I haven’t seen so much brown-nosing in years.
Where do we go from here? Words are disappearing faster than I can turn a page.
