Copying work. I peruse websites throughout the day and see things that I find interesting but unless I have a unique spin on a story, I’m not going to post duplicate info. Copying other people’s work has to be one of the lowest forms of blogging. Considering how well bloggers are already respected, reproducing work isn’t acceptable.
Unfortunately, what this does is restricts the majority of things I want to write about because my new information is virtually non-existent. I suppose you could make the argument that if you never saw it, and it still exists, how could it be considered copying? Which is a valid argument because everything is mentioned by some source somewhere. If I see a funny video first posted on Barstool, it feels wrong to take it and post it on my site. But if I take 10 funny things from Reddit and combine them into one post, that to me isn’t as bad because I’m creating a post from tidbits of information. If I know it’s completely main stream I don’t have a problem posting it because everyone is using it. Or if it’s completely obscure I’ll post it because I’m bringing it to peoples attention. The middling ground is where websites feel like it’s their “original” post and copying it seems wrong.
What this does though is that it makes me take longer to come up with posts. I need to formulate an idea and then come up with original content for what I consider the best quality posts. I would like to think that people come here to read something that makes them think some thought went into it and not just regurgitating the news which they can get anywhere. However, with this thought in mind, sometimes my content just isn’t there. I spent the weekend drinking, not coming up with content. This not only produced no new content, but stymied my weekend thought which is bad on all levels.
And to answer the question of the title, this post is the worst part about blogging. It’s forcing out a post with no substance. Knowing that it’s not great but also knowing that if you don’t post in 3 days you aren’t exactly staying current with people who visit your site. This is a double edged sword because making blogging your life isn’t an option because it pays 0 but not spending time really sinks your ship. That’s all I can write on my current position. My Monday posts are notoriously the worst of the week.
Leave a Reply