Why There’s a Gap

I don’t think there’s much point in apologizing to our non-existent readers for having a long gap in posting, but for someone who runs across this site in the future they may wonder why I started, and then stopped, producing content.

I started this blog/site/whatever to try and provide a haven from the outrage machine that dominates our media and attempts to inflame your passions and monetize them. However, I think my approach was fundamentally wrong for various reasons.

1. I was trying to keep up. This is just plain impossible. There is no way to dissect each outrage or to stay current with our socio-political climate without essentially gluing yourself to your laptop 24 hours a day. I didn’t have the seed money to support that or the will to do it. So fuck that.
2. As part of this effort, the articles boiled down to just another bit of commentary on headlines that were attempting to coat-tail other headlines that were simply meant to inflame passions and drive clicks, so I was essentially adding to the never-ending loop of pointless, anti-intellectual drivel that is rotting our society like so many sour gummy worms rot teeth. I wasn’t adding value, and the articles were about as valuable as said sour worms are nutritious. We don’t need more chewing gum for the brain.
3. I was getting wrapped up in what has now become science: SEO, keyword density, search trends, and all the other crap that can make really bland and frankly shitty content profitable. And I’m not on a high-horse here: I read Buzzfeed. I read a fucking “article” about photographers getting punked by instagram influencers for no fucking reason other than it was there on my Apple News app, and afterwards I felt as dirty and empty as a meth-head that just stole their aging mother’s tv.

So what now? Stop doing 1, 2, and 3, and get back to doing what makes writing actually interesting and fun. 1, 2, and 3 drain writing of all that. It may be a quicker path to money, but it also becomes just work.

In the future expect articles that dig into stories that won’t show up on search trends, mostly at the local level. I want to stick with the main theme of providing a place that rejects both extreme fringes of our culture and stays centered on intelligence, humanity, humor, and social critique, but also allows forays into other topics that don’t necessarily connect directly to these main themes.

Here’s to hoping for big changes in 2020 and years to come. BTW, Yoast hates this article, so it’s a step in the right direction.