As people have been saying since the dawn of the blog — a lot of it's about ego.
"You can argue that you post on Facebook to keep your family up-to-date about your life. You can argue that you tweet to build up your personal brand. But in the end, you’re just like every other person on a planet: you love it when people start sharing one of your blog posts like mad, and you’re disappointed when nobody comments on that witty thing you just posted to your friends."
Yup. Indeed, some of my best bon mots have gone past with nary a comment, and it's frustrating as hell. And, yes, it does give me a frisson of pleasure when someone shares, links to, (re)tweets, etc. something I've put out there.
On the other hand, is that very different from what we bond together in societies about? "Esteem" is the penultimate layer of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Yeah, we huddle together in the cave to share warmth and food and all that, but we also crave people pointing to a particularly well-chipped flint or nicely daubed wall painting, or to tell the tale of our great hunt around the fire.
It's just a lot easier these days to get a +1 or a Like. And as long as we remember there's another capstone layer of that hierarchy of needs, we should be okay. #ddtb
It does remind me a bit of Cory Doctorow's "whuffie" currency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie).
Reshared post from +Ben Parr
Do you agree or disagree with me? Has social media turned us into a Validation Society?
Embedded Link
Likes, Retweets, Comments & the Rise of the Validation Society
Not too long ago, my co-founder and I were deep in investor prep and product design (announcements coming soon) when we started talking about the
I agree. While I get disapointed when no one comments on my blog, I do it anyway as it is more like therapy for me than anything else. However, the ever growing "blog etiquitte" drives me insane. Why should anyone have to comment on every single comment then go and comment on that authors blog and so on and so forth. Many women's blogs are mommy blogs and they are all about the "ra-ra-ra we are mommies and we are good at it!" The "blog award" things drive me crazy as well.
I am not going to comment if I don't have something meaningful to say, and I don't expect anything different from the ppl who might find my blog. Because of that…I try not to let it bother when I don't get visitors. I, and everyone else, really has better things to do with their time.
If someone writes a comment, I'll usually respond unless I can think of nothing at all to say, just to politely acknowledge that they did, in fact, comment. But, yeah, it's also something that can be taken too far.
As for blog awards — it can be fun, or it can be useful, or it can just be like running for HS president or prom queen in terms of being some sort of snarky popularity contest (and not in a good way).
Yea….I vote for the latter… for example "the sparkliest blog award" or "the sassy blog award". You get this little tiny graphic and the only recognition is that someone linked to your blog from their blog giving you the award. They are almost like Chain letters…have to give 5 people or 10 people or something the same award. I had to stop reading all the mommy blogs.
Oh, yeah, that kind. I've gotten a few, and somehow my life hasn't changed any. 🙂