NTY: Blog Hysteria
I dislike the New York Times for a number of reasons. Running the ‘General Betray Us‘ ad is one reason. Another, less political one is that you have to register for their website in order to read some of their content, including this article, which I’d like to take a moment to talk about.
The headline is In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop and the article talks about the potential health risks of blogging. Health Risks….of blogging. I understand the NYT likes to start a ruckus, and most media outlets like to throw in the scare factor to boost sales, but this is some unnecessary alarmism. They talk about the death of two prominent bloggers within a small time frame, and that:
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
Of course they assure us that there is no ‘official diagnosis of death by blogging,’ which anyone with half a brain already knows. What gets me so mad is there is no reason for this article for a few reasons.
- If you don’t take care of yourself, no matter what line of work you are in you will see deteriorating health.
- This makes the blogging industry seem like an evil corporation that over-works their writers (they even draw parallels to a sweatshop).
- They make the entire web-business idea seem like a way to make money at the cost of your health and/or life.
Here is the real deal though- if you are a workaholic, you’ll get like that no matter what you do. Furthermore, if you run your own business, web or brick-and-mortar, it’s going to run you down. The man who owned the deli I used to work at put 60-80 hours a week into that place. I have to run my business in my free time because of school and it takes a toll on me too. They are creating hysteria over nothing. I’m not exactly healthy- is that because I am a web developer and software engineering major? Maybe. Maybe it’s because I’ve been slacking on the gym and eat horribly.
I have half a mind to say that the NYT is just writing what amounts to a smear article against blogging because it’s giving them strong competition and it’s taking away from their revenue. But then I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I?
I can understand not liking the NYT for the blogger article… it essentially gives the symptoms for having ANY job… the guy that makes the fries at McDonalds will have fluctuations in weight (more probably is the gain of such), exhaustion due to standing all day over a hot fryer, and of course he’s going to have sleep disorders-mostly because he or she is lying in bed asking, “Wtf did I do to end up having to write in Ronald McDonald as a reference?”
As for the General Betray-Us…did you see the case he presented for congress as to the status of our “war”? Congress asked a simple question: when will we be done? And our fearless general answered with something to the effect of, “We’ll be done when its done…” He has no idea as to what criterion dictates the end of our work in iraq… what I gather from that is we have some guy who really has no idea what he’s doing, but will appeal to his authority by giving an answer that at face value looks as though he has a plan, when in reality, its a veil for a damaged ego… God, I love our country . – Wait! Am I still allowed to say that?