Why I Didn't Write A Blog Entry Today
There’s a lot of blog entries I call “load-bearing entries.” Those are the ones where, if I write one wrong paragraph, I’ll risk the wrath of the Internet falling upon me for something I didn’t mean to say. I write maybe two of those a month, even though I get ideas for them pretty much daily. But those sorts of essays require a lot of forethought and the willingness to deal with asshole responses for the rest of the week, so I don’t write ’em all.
There’s a lot of blog entries inspired by questionable things that other people I know are doing, and writing about that now would have those people feeling personally attacked. And even if I didn’t mind hurting people’s feelings, the problem with personal attacks is that it transforms the experience of the essay from “This is bad behavior that has these negative consequences” to “YOU JUST DON’T LIKE THIS PERSON,” and the message is lost. So I make a mental note, wait a few months, file off the serial numbers, and write an essay on the exact same behavior when everyone’s forgotten who it is. Sometimes those people who inspired it by being buttheads thank me for writing such an insightful essay. It’s weird.
There’s a lot of blog entries on topics that are really dear to my heart, and I want to get the emotions on them right, but I’m just not finding the right entry point. And rather than knocking out a quick essay on this really emotionally-critical topic that misses the mark, I stash it and hope one day I’ll find the way to write it as well as this not-often-discussed topic deserves.
There’s a lot of blog entries where someone else said it, and I think I have something new to add, but whoops, I don’t. Deleted.
There’s a lot of blog entries where something important is happening, and while I have Very Severe Feelings, I don’t feel like pretending that reading two essays and a Wikipedia article makes me an expert on the topic. Deleted.
There’s a lot of blog entries where I can say what I need to on Twitter, and while in the old days maybe I would have coalesced a couple of other thoughts around that single idea to make a blog post, Twitter is now where I get my little thoughts out of the way.
There’s a lot of blog entries where I’ve been talking about the same topic for days in a row, and because I’m responding to people’s responses, the general interpretation is that “Man, Ferrett is really mad about the way people are reacting to him.” But I’m not. Ferocious debate interests me, particularly when people are wrong. But after three days of response essays I find that, much like the “personal attack” essay, the lesson people start taking away is “Wow, is he thin-skinned,” so I stop responding after a bit because my points become increasingly lost.
There’s a lot of blog entries where it’s inspired by a relationship question I’m pondering, but if time has taught me one thing, it’s that opening your relationship to Internet debate hardly ever settles the question even if you’re telling people that you’re probably on the wrong side of this debate. So I’ll wait a few months on that one, too. Until it’s no longer a question, but an answer.
There’s a lot of blog entries where I’ve said that before. So I don’t again.
There’s a lot of blog entries I forget, particular when I’ve laid ’em fallow for a few months.
There’s a lot of blog entries. But man. If you could see all the topics I consider, you’d realize how easy blogging is for me, and how hard.
Dear Mr. Ferrett,
Thank you for writing the blog post last week, “Why BillyHigginsPeery is a Huge Jerk and Everybody Should Totally Hate Him.” I thought it was deeply insightful and I couldn’t agree with you more.
Jokingly and Hopefully It’s A Funny Joke Not a Bizarro Unfunny One,
Billy Higgins Peery