Too Many Blogs?

When Bob over at Cylcopeatron first posted a list of gaming blog rankings (by follower) some time back, I was surprised by two things. First, that my blog at that time was somewhere around the top 25 percent of such blogs. And second, there seemed to be less blogs than I thought out there. Bob posted such a list again recently, and two things stuck out at me. Firstly, there were now a lot more blogs out there. Secondly, a lot of low-follower blogs had grown substantially in the amount of followers.

Now, my blog hasn’t exactly grown that much since the first list, despite fairly regular posting. Well, here’s the thing; I don’t think amount of posts, nor necessarily the content, matter that much anymore. A couple of years ago it did. Grognardia has such substantial growth in large part because of sheer amounts of posting, not necessarily the content. Other large follower blogs were either around a long time, or had a female or porno connection of some kind. Not to say by any means that these guys did not have great posts, which of course they do. But it is kind of arbitrary in many cases. If Playing D&D With Porn Stars was just “Zak’s D&D Musings” without mention of gangbang girls running elves, he’d probably have somewhere around 200 followers (or less). Don’t get me wrong, he is obviously a smart and talented dude, but lots of smart and talented dudes (and I don’t necessarily consider myself one of those) often have only around 200 followers.

After that first list at Cyclo’s, I saw one blog that was basically just a dude posting text from Edgar Rice Burroughs with no personal commentary, shoot up fairly quickly from around 20 followers to around 50. Perhaps that is in no small part because Bob at Cyclo asked that his readers support these low-follower blogs (many of which had few followers for obvious reasons). I saw another blog who had followers somewhat less than my count, shoot up past me soon after that Cyclo list. Why? Well, the content certainly did not necessarily improve. But I’ll tell you what, every new blog I look at has this one guy as a recently subscribed follower. He figured out that the more you sign up on other blogs, the more of them will do you a solid back and follow you. His comment in Bob’s recent post was “wow, I’m inspired to try harder!” Harder doing what, signing up for every other blog out there? All that takes is having time on your hands.

That’s all great, but I don’t personally care about amount of followers. It is not at all indicative of my content, nor that all of them are actually reading it. I tend to look at and subscribe to the folks who comment on my post. That is how I learn about and join other blogs. I have no interest in starting my own low-end fanzine nor advertising some new game or scenario I have created for sale. I’m just a gamer doing some gaming, man.

I think the blogosphere as a community thing is great, but in the case of classic gaming I think we are starting to have a glut of blogs that don’t have much to say or much to offer. It is becoming more important to some to have a blog and have a lot of followers than it is to game.

I personally don’t have the time to join up all the others blogs out there, and especially to actually read them all. And to join just to get followers would seem kind of hollow to me. I just do my gaming, and do some blogging because I’ve been at it a long time and feel I have a lot to say. This blog has become a place for me to vent about gaming past and present. A lot of negativity has come out of that, but that is part of the vent. The truth is I love gaming, it has been a big part of my life, and it has mostly been a positive experience for me. The blog, not always so much. One guy freaking out epically on his blog because I tore up one of his creepo players some time ago actually cost me a few followers on my blog . Did he have a point? To a degree. Did I? To a degree. In our own ways we overreacted (and both of us could have talked to the other before acting, but we are dudes and dudes can be dumbasses sometimes). Do I care that some people found my rantings too offensive to continue with? Not a wit. I’m not fully the person I sometimes appear to be on my blog any more than I (or anybody) am always the person I am when I get ticked off at something in life in general. That is why I do that blog. Good or bad, I always have something to say. Either something happy about my gaming experiences, or to let off some steam.

In real life I am usually the biggest person in the room, both physically and in personality. I live large no matter what I do. But do I care if I am a big dog in the blogosphere. Hells no. I have something to say for now, and I hope at least a handful read and have something to say back to me about it (good or bad). I’m actually getting something out of blogging about gaming that I think a lot aren’t. I care not for amount of followers. I care about what I have to say and what others have to say back.

A lot of blogs will be gone in a couple of years (I don’t plan on doing this forever). But as long as I do it I will try to live it by one thing – “blog because you game. Don’t game because you blog.”

That makes sense. I think…

EDIT: I also should add that in the last couple of months I have had two unrelated computer problems that slowdown my own joining of other sites, and my commenting on them. First, my home computer got hit by the Thinkpoint virus and is still messed up, so I spend less time on it. Second, many comment functions on other blogs do not work on my office computer. Only those that allow a pop-up can be commented upon. Other problems exist, such as Bob's Cylopeatron site not loading due to adult content (which he told me does not exist on his site), and also my links to his site don't work for some reason. So to those whom I don't respond to as far as joining your blog or commenting upon, I plead severe tech problems! If you visit my blog and comment and I don't check out your stuff, be sure and remind me to give it another try!