Narcissistic? Yes. Lame? No. — slackermama . com

So there’s a lot of rumblings going on in the blog community (or at least the blog community that I pay attention to) that blogs are lame and narcissistic. I take except to that. Well, not the narcissistic part (and please don’t make me type that word out again) because DUH, that’s the nature of a blog. If blogs weren’t self-centered (whew, thank you thesaurus), they wouldn’t be blogs. That’s their inherent nature. You don’t write a blog about someone else… unless you write a celebrity blog or somesuch. But personal blogs are rife with navel-gazing because that’s the topic at hand. So, whatever. I’m over it. I’m focused on me because this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want, especially if that topic happens to be me and mine.

But lame? Ouch, that stings! I’m sure these comments were initially made in full self-deprecating fashion, but when such things are said there is often a nugget of truth at the center of it all. Meaning, whoever first said it (and I don’t really remember now who that was and I’m far too lazy to look it up) probably believes these statements to be true, at least a little bit. And ya know, that’s cool. Everyone’s entitled to their opinions. But if I really thought blogging was lame you can bet that I wouldn’t a) be writing three of them or b) spend good portions of my day reading other people’s blogs. So obviously, I think blogs rock my socks.

So I don’t really get why bloggers themselves, especially anyone who makes a job out of what they do would think or even suggest that blogs are lame. Still, I can understand where the discussion is coming from and what the whole stink is about. A lot of bloggers worry about losing their authenticity (or worse yet, have lost it already), about losing the initial passion that made blogging such a wonderful thing for them. I’m pretty fortunate, I haven’t had that sort of problem. I know that having ads on their sites tends to stifle other bloggers but I’ve never once had that issue. Again, I’m lucky. And who knows what lurks around the corner. Things could change for me, in the grand scheme of things I’m still a relatively new blogger. And I definitely don’t want to come off as holier-than-thou either.

What I really wanted to say was that with all the discussion of narcissism (damn, there’s that word again) and lameness and boring blogs that I’m not buying into it. I don’t thing posting a meme makes my blog unbearable (you may, of course, think otherwise) and I don’t think that ranting about the television show I watched the night before is especially unremarkable. I do know that I’m not the best writer in the world. If had more talent, I would probably be writing best-selling novels and wouldn’t have a lot of extra time for blogging. And that lack of talent might make this blog pretty lame to the outside eye. But to me, it is a slice of my life and because of that, it’s precious to me.

Get the word out: