I was never popular and trendy in school, were you? I was always the outsider looking in. I always wondered who made up the rules and who said that this was the best way to look and act. Often times I have found that my creative nature is the reason for my lack of being trendy. I was never drawn to the pre-made formula that is followed by the cool people. Many of my friends back then and still today are aspiring artist, actors, musicians and writers. People who found the individual much more important than mass appeal. I still feel this way and find at times that I am still fighting the same old battles with myself again. I want more people to read my blog, but at what cost? I want my writing friendly,welcoming and good for any age reader. I never want someone to feel that my writing is critical or hate filled or overly offensive. I must be true to myself and hope for the best when it comes to the popularity contest of the internet. But who are we kidding, the internet is just like middle school where bad taste is cool and the rest of us just get passed over.
totally uncool in high school. 1986
I know that I am not the only one who finds popular culture shallow and boring? I have found myself following a bunch of blogs that have some huge followings and discovering that I had to stop reading them. Maybe I am to old…being 45, maybe I want to much from other bloggers, maybe I am just finding the topics of conversation shallow. I find it hard to believe how many followers some blogs have and the amount of cuss words that are in each paragraph. It made we wonder about my blog again.
The conversion inside my head went like this.” Wow I really must be doing some thing wrong if ———( you fill in the blank)’s blog has been Freshly Pressed and got 1000 followers over the course of a month.They must have something important to say if they are this popular with only 12 posts. I must read the rest of these posts to see what it is that makes this blog so trendy. I am sure that I can learn some thing from this author. OOOOPS, well I am not finishing all these posts, how can I even get through this one? What a total wast of time. I guess it is back square one. If this is what it takes to get followers I am in real trouble again.”
Well I did read some of the posts and found that every post was a confrontation, a middle finger in the readers face. I also discovered that every paragraph had at least one “F” word in it. The topics were about hate, destruction and rebellion. I got the impression that as long as I wrote about how screwed up everything is, I would be a topical writer and a head liner. If I exposed every flaw I found at other blogs and wrote about how terrible their grammar and spelling was then I would be viewed as an expert.
It would all be a lie. I am to passionate of a person to spend a large portion of my free time trying to write a post that will get all the hipsters here reading every week. I will never say anything controversial enough to incite a blog word war. I am to sensitive about others feelings to slam another persons hard work with hateful words of criticism.
self Portrait with book 6-2014
So in the end I feel empowered and don’t have to worry about being cool. I am free to write for the pleasure of it. The way creative people have been doing it since the pen hit the paper. I find that not being trendy leads me to wider topics and deeper feeling and more artful expression. Some days I just have to remind myself this is not a competition about who is the most trendy and remember that this is about letting you see my world through my words and nothing more. If one day my youngest son reads these words and loves them then I have reached my target audience and the rest is for the joy of it.
Christopher on swing set
West Virginia Mountain Mama 