I'm Just Sharing

A couple of days ago, Sonia Simone of Copyblogger wrote an interesting post called Is Writing Obsolete?. She answered “no” in her own way; I want to answer the question in another way.

You see it in my title here; no, reading and creativity are obsolete, or are moving in that direction. It’s getting to the point these days where it seems there’s no original thought almost anywhere, and people aren’t reading as much as they’re copying and trying to find ways to put it in their own words, but failing. It’s also harder to keep someone’s attention in an MTV world where reality TV becomes the norm because it’s harder for people to stick with true, episodic programs where we get to know who the characters are week to week and year to year.

If you don’t believe me, let’s look at movies. How many original movies came out this year? Not all that many; at least not the big name movies. Most have been sequels or remakes of past movies. Many are based on books, but aren’t anywhere near the book. I’m not commenting on whether they’re entertaining or not; I’m commenting on whether they’re original or creative.

On the radio this afternoon, I heard a remake of “Mickey,” the song Toni Basil turned into a dance classic in the 80′s. The only thing different than the original song was the singer and the bass line wasn’t as prominent. Can you say “dull?” Then I heard some other songs and realized they were taken from the past also. How many rappers are stealing from rap songs of the past nowadays? Sure, the original rappers sampled other people’s music, but they at least created something out of it that was original.

When I wrote my post on Blog Day a couple of weeks ago, I highlighted some folks who actually create some new stuff (though I did pick on Sire for writing something new about Blogger that I actually wrote on last year). However, all these folks write original content, even if it’s on a topic that others have covered.

I love reading original content; then again, I love reading. I can’t tell you how many times it seems like people have commented on something I’ve written and shown that they didn’t read the entire thing. Even on short posts, people miss what I’ve written. Is it a quest to try to read as many blogs as possible just to put a comment on it, or is it possible that, sometimes, if there’s too many words, they just can’t be processed by many people’s minds?

Grizzly of How to Make Money Online for Beginners wrote a post asking people to Write Something I can Send Traffic To, saying he loves sending traffic to other places, but can’t find enough to warrant the justification, though he highlights some people in the post. I’m thinking that’s going to be a goal as I near my 500th post on this blog for my next 100 posts. I want to share some love, and, who knows, maybe I’ll get some love back.

Or maybe I’m already getting some. On the 4th of September, one day after my 50th birthday, I woke to seeing myself as finally hitting 100 readers through my RSS feed. It fluctuates all the time, so it might not be 100 when you see this. But 100 readers is a nice touch; I like being in triple digits, even as my Technorati ranking seems to be tanking these days. No matter; I’m happy for those of you who visit, whether you read every word I write or not.

Please, though, if you’re going to keep writing your blogs, be creative, and maybe I’ll spotlight you one of these days.

Football Season starts next weekend; get your gear now!

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