Breaking News: Grumpy old fart pandering for relinking and pageviews takes controversial stance on starting a new blog in 2014.
He advises: “Don’t. There’s more modern means to start a discussion. And you won’t become famous.”
Sure.
If you want a lively, quick firing, discussion comprising of short sentences – there’s Twitter, Reddit and various forums.
If you want to be famous, try Youtube videos, assuming you have the face, voice and personality for it.
However:
If you want a personal platform to pen your thoughts, express your opinions and practice writing…
… AND produce content that people at work can sneakily read so they aren’t bored out of their minds…
Then
BLOG.
This post was brought to you by the Newbie Blogger Initiative 2014: Decreasing Work Productivity by 8% Annually.
Why I Game 
Yes, it’s apples and oranges for a start. Like advising someone not to become a poet because novels sell better and novelists are more famous. Kind of beside the point. Hardly anyone makes money out of poetry or becomes famous but there’s no shortage of poets (more’s the pity, some might say). If you get the urge to versify you just have to let it out. Same with blogging.
But also as I pointed out in the comments, I’m not convinced Tobold’s argument is even true. When was the last time you heard a Reddit poster on national radio being asked for his comments on an issue of the day? Bloggers, on the other hand, turn up relatively frequently, or they do on the BBC.
And then it depends what you mean by “famous”. One of the most peculiar things that ever happened to me was when I was in my late 30s and a guy who’d been temping for a few weeks in the place where I worked came up to me and asked me if I used to write for comics fanzines. I said I used to a while back and he produced a copy of a zine I’d written for about five years before. He told me he’d read all my stuff in various zines and quoted stuff back to me that I’d forgotten I’d written.
That was particularly weird because it happened out of context in “real” life but in blogging it happens all the time – only yesterday I clicked through a link to a blog I’d never heard of and the first post I came across began with a quote from Inventory Full. I don’t know what level of “fame” Tobold is using as a benchmark but if you want to define “fame” as “being recognized by people who you have never met” then blogging seems to be a pretty good way to find it to me.
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I would say you invalidate your own opinion by using uncalled for personal insults. For the record, I don’t care at all about links and pageviews. My blog is well past that stage.
And it is exactly BECAUSE as you so clearly demonstrated, bloggers care too much about links and pageviews that I wouldn’t recommend MMORPG blogging.
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I see you missed the humor tag, as well as me merely using the term you yourself struck through. 🙂
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I see you missed my explanation that it was the “pandering for relinking and pageviews” parts I was objecting to.
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Ah, but isn’t that what being controversial on a blog is good for?
I’m sorry if you consider that a personal insult.
Let’s clarify in the comments that you’re certainly established enough to not require any links or pageviews, and that -I- am prone to exaggeration for effect, because I’m certainly not above using little writing tricks to encourage people to read on. 🙂
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