A Blogger Worth Their Salt

It's never an intention of mine to judge the way other creators decide to express themselves. After all, art is boundless and creativity is eternally limitless. There is no one way to do or express anything and that's one of the beauties of art. It's one of the primary reasons so many people embrace the arts not only to cope with trauma's, life experiences, or mental disabilities and impairments but as a catharsis for the emotions they experience and need to release. For the most part, I'm tremendously accepting and understanding of the way in which others convey their thoughts, ideas, and emotions because I find it illuminating to step into someone else's mind and internalize their experiences or thoughts from their perspective. These gems can be incredibly enlightening + inspiring, if nothing else.

Among the gems, however, once in a while I encounter chunks of coal. Poorly constructed, grammatically atrocious, thoughtless, incoherent + repetitive words thrown together haphazardly for the sake of posting something or affecting SEO in some way. These make my brain itch but not quite as much as someone who posts a blog or article that is riddled with quotes. I'm all about reading the expression of the artist and I believe that if your entire piece is paragraphs of quotes then you're missing the point.

While there is no one way to express ideas, there is a correct way to compose a piece so it is engaging and interesting to read. And I, personally, do not believe that a 5000 word piece should consist solely of repetitive quotes. Believe it or not, I've encountered excerpts like this more times than I care to admit and it always causes me to regret clicking on the article to begin with. Not to generalize, but I've noticed a common theme with these types of posts being primarily political.

Usually when articles like these show up on the search page it's because I'm searching something to do with an election, the pandemic, or updates on stimulus or unemployment benefits and, rather than the author intermingling their own thoughts or emotions with the quotes, they seem to extract the quotes from other sources (sometimes other articles on larger platforms with a greater readership) and stuff them into unorganized paragraphs together, sometimes posting the same quote several times while changing the wording slightly, and this is frustrating to someone who is seeking important information that just isn't there. It muddles the entire thing for me.

As someone who takes great pride in my artistic and creative expression and as someone who is truly passionate about my art enough to feel for the inspiration to write before I ever put my fingers to my keyboard, these types of thoughtless expositions feel disrespectful due to their lack of passion and inspiration. It seems they exist solely for the purpose of drawing attention or generating an income (because the ads render the piece nearly illegible) rather than for the purpose of artistic expression or sharing important information.

Truthfully, they do serve a positive purpose, however. When I broaden my perspective as I think of these blurbs, I use their "mistakes" (as I see them) and learn to hone my own method of expression so that I am submitting truly engaging pieces that are not only an authentic reflection of my thoughts + emotions but are interesting to read and sometimes emotionally stirring. My belief is that quality will supersede quantity any day and those who appreciate and seek out quality will always be satisfied that they've found my content. For any blogger worth their salt, this is what is paramount.