So I was perusing the May 2006 issue of Cosmo Girl and…what? Oh, like you guys never flip through those women’s magazines. Look, my sister-in-law subscribes to Cosmo Girl, she left this issue sitting on the lamp stand, I had to make an emergency trip to the “reading room” if you catch my drift. I was in a pinch (or was it a clench?) and it was the only thing I could find on such short notice besides the Janet Evanovich books laying around. Besides, it’s more interesting to read Cosmo Girl than the back of the shampoo bottle over and over again.
A_n_y_w_a_y… I was reading flipping through this magazine and came across an article in which Jon Heder (Napolean Dynomite) gives five tips for accepting yourself for who you are. A recent post by Natalie got me thinking along the lines of geekery in the blog-oh-sphere. It seems to me (I think I read it somewhere, I can’t remember where though; if you know where I got this idea leave the link and stuff) that there are three groups of bloggers out there.
Group one is the popular group. They’re the ones that have this blogging thing down pat. Everyone knows their name.
Group two is the wannabe’s. They want to be in the popular group.
Group three is the punks. They’re not in the popular group and don’t care. They’re just doing their own thing and don’t give a rip what anyone thinks about them.
I suspect that most bloggers are in group number two. It’s with that in mind that I want to give a blogger-adapted list of Cosmo Girl’s five ways to accept the fact that you’re not one of the popular people…yet. Folks, let’s embrace our geekiness.
- Be confident in yourself. You may not be in the Technorati Top 100. Heck, you might not be in the Top 100,000. But that doesn’t mean you suck. Chances are you’re pretty good at blogging but haven’t been doing it long enough for anyone to know who you are. Keep at it, do it for the joy of doing it; not for the joy of getting noticed.
- Forget the “cool kids.” All those popular bloggers are geeks just like you and me. They all have days when they don’t know what to write about, they all wonder what other people think about them. You are fundamentally no different from them. Find encouragement in that!
- Laugh off insults. I’ve only had one troll come by my site, I’m very lucky for that. Trolls suck. But that’s not the kind of insult I’m talking about here. I’m talking about Technorati and those other blog ranking services. When you go there and see you’re number 1,000,000,000 on the list of popularity you need to laugh it off. Those numbers don’t mean anything unless you let them.
- Show off your strengths. Are you good at designing but can’t write too well? Then design yourself a killer blog and write the best you can. Do you suck at design but excel at writing? Then focus on writing, or movie reviews or horse show reports. Focus on what you do well. If you’re a math whiz, why not blog about Math? Blog about what you enjoy, it’s that simple. If you’re like me and you’re not great at anything in particular your blog just rambles on and on eventually sinking to the level of talking about Cosmo Girl.
- Stick by other geeks. That is, there’s nothing wrong with hanging out with bloggers who have like interests. I’m probably not going to go hang out at the Car blogs because that stuff bores me. I’ll go to the religious blogs, or the design blogs, or the personal blogs. There’s a great sense of belonging you feel when you find a group of other bloggers who you can relate with. There’s nothing wrong with that.
In the end it all comes down to being comfortable with who you are as a blogger. Be yourself, laugh at yourself too.
What advice would you give to other bloggers? What experiences can you share that might help someone else who’s going through the same thing?
