My Blog? Or Yours?
I'll explain.
When starting out my blog, I only really focused on politics because that is my main interest. The 2020 US Election kickstarted my desire to share my views and create resources aimed at helping young people understand the situation and how it would affect the world. Since then, the blog has evolved to create more opinion pieces on a wide range of issues, not just politics, but fashion, travel, and experiences.
This is in some ways natural - having a blog means you can control what is featured and decide to start discussing other issues. In addition, the author grows over time, in their writing, in their values, and in their experiences through personal life.
But I wanted to counteract this with the idea that this is not my blog, but yours.
Bloggers are in some ways a slave to the reader's opinions, thoughts, and demands. What I am saying is, in the 21st century, to develop and grow, everything is about likes and engagement and comments and views and reshares. It is not necessarily about the VALUE of the content being created and spread on platforms.
Little I is not immune to the effects of social media analytics and the data world. At the end of every blog, the reader has the option to 'like' it. This online validation then drives bloggers like me to decide what is best to publish for audiences. I use the number of views and likes to judge what topics are popular and then focus on those. For example, my latest piece on Palestine v Israel: 2023 was less well received in comparison to previous blogs in September. I had thought it would perform well as it is a topical issue and one that young people seem to be increasingly polarised about.
But is this correct? Writing just to please the reader's interests? There seems little point in writing blogs that nobody wants to read but at the same time, if all writers create content that is popular or societally consumable, how can we explore themes and ideas that are not mainstream? How can we challenge ways of thinking and propose alternative solutions? Some of my political pieces receive less attention compared to other themes and the temptation exists to move away from that kind of blog and move towards other topics.
I can spend my entire time crafting blogs I know people will like, but what about me? Maybe it is selfish, but I only write blogs I have an interest in because that is what I want to share. I think every author should have creative freedom over their work but I understand the pressure to grow their site. Succumbing to readers is very easy to do but I refuse to lose my originality, my passion, my drive for starting the blog in the first place.
I think the outcome ends up being a mix of the two, with more original pieces than social media-designed pieces. If you outright refuse to blog on certain issues, you can miss out on growing your platform. This is so crucial because when you do talk about your passions, whether that be politics or something else, you will not have the audience base to do so, to give that exposure to an issue.
Therefore, Little I may be your blog more than it is mine. But today, I made the choice to continue blogging as I want to offer my opinion, even if it gets zero likes or views.
*Header image in this context shows the author being photographed, or monitored, by the readers of Little I
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