Consequence of winning?
Is Gun Blogging Getting Harder?
Not really. Just come up with a few catchphrases and repeat them every once in a while. Link to pretty pictures. You know, the usual. That’s presuming you have an audience, of course. If you don’t, then it’s harder. After all, why would someone read you when they probably already read someone who does that?
It is a bit interesting to me that gun blogging is quickly becoming an echo chamber. All the blogs link to and comment on the same things (just like this post). They even say the same thing. It really is hard to stand out. And hard to be successful at it. After all, there are a lot of us. And even I, who reads the whole internet every day, can’t keep up with every thing going on.
Pretty much, there’s a few types of gun blogs. The linker, who keeps you up to date on everything but not in much detail. The thinker, who usually examines legal/social issues in detail. The icanhazcheeseburger model of putting up a pic and linking to something discussing the pic (almost just like the linker but with more gun porn). The personal blogger, who blogs about their experiences. And the new media working for the gun company man sort, who do good blogging but, because of blogging, are likely blogging for pay. I read some of each and like them all just fine.
Lately, I’m reading the personal blogger folks more since they’re the ones who are not talking about stuff I’ve already read. If I go to ten blogs and they’re all talking about stuff I’ve already seen, I just go on.
And next thing you know, we’re all blogging about blogging.
Could be that it has peaked. And maybe some new blood will take over soon.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Blogging is like karaoke is like homebrewing beer is like anything else that technology allows humans to do en masse.
With this gee-whiz computer technology stuff, anybody can blog.
Anyone can also get some sort of canned music technology and sing along with, or buy some basic technology and make their own beer, or fry their own turkeys.
However, not everybody who sings karaoke is good enough to get a record deal; nor is everybody who brews beer good enough to start a brewing company; nor is everyone who fries turkeys good enough to start a restaurant.
So it is with blogging.
Technology allows any and everybody to do it. But only the really good, talented ones are worth reading.
And with everybody doing it, it sometimes just takes a little more filtering and digging to find the good ones.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:21 am
We won and its all over?
Not! Go read this stuff:
https://www.saysuncle.com/category/guns/atf/
Uncle thanks for the blog.
Really. Settle down.
Keep up the good work.
Eternal vigilance, etc…
December 7th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Hey, there’s the second hundred years of the 1911 starting any day now, so there will be plenty of new stuff to blog about!
December 7th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I’ll admit to being a little burned-out at the moment, but I have another Über-essay percolating somewhere in the back of my head right now. Not particularly gun-oriented, but still…
As far as the gunstuff is concerned, I’m still running a bowling-pin match and I’m still working on an accurate load for the M25, so I still have some stuff to write about.
If I ever get around to it.
December 7th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I’m trying to figure out what type of blogger I am. I link to other blogs in some posts as they are what is happening right now. But the posts that I’m proud of are the posts that I make that not everyone else is making at the moment.
My list of range-bag contents, for example. No one else that I know of was providing that resource at the moment. My list of range bag items might be a good list for others to copy. But my traffic isn’t high enough for many people to benefit, yet. (Hint: Link to me.)
Quality posts are more effort to make and certainly don’t happen on a daily basis. So my type of gun blog perhaps is a quality nugget every so often, with humorous or poignant filler.
I hope that someone finds the original content (like the range bag list) worthwhile. Enough to say “Hey. VI has something worth your time to read.”
December 7th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
The big problem is, a blogger gets tired of talking about the same shit over and over again, but based on some observations I’ve made, I think blog audience tends to turn over every few years…. so those same tired old arguments made four years ago were all read by different people 🙂
December 7th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
My only problem is finding enough time to do the more substantive blog posts on many of the legal cases percolating through the courts.
There is plenty to write about and not enough time to do it!
Besides there are always new guns coming out, there are always – and I mean always – stupid politicians to make fun of, and the list goes on.
December 7th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I’m trying to figure out what type of blogger I am.
Hell I’ve been doing this almost 3 years and I’m still trying to figure that out.
December 7th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I agree with Sebastian and Kevin.
I’ve been burned out for some time. But am trying to get back into it. But focusing on what I like these days – which is mostly killing creatures in Wayne Pacelle’s name.
Not much posted yet, but I’m compiling video and want to start putting video up. But that takes time – both for the shooting of the video, and the editing of the video, and the blogging that goes with the video. And well, add to all that time, the time I need to keep my house in order, and my wife happy, and do my job (which takes up increasing amounts of time) and of course spend time with the kids . . . and well, the occasional link on facebook is just easier.
December 7th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
So, by “new blood”, do you mean a whole new *type* of blogger, or just fresh faces?
December 7th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
These things go in cycles. We will see some other issue come down the road sometime.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
I would not say that the demise of the gun blogger is upon us…. Atleast I hope not, since I just started a gun blog…. I think this is more of a lull and mainly in the politics side of blogging. For bloggers that only want to pound the keys about the infringment of rights, I can see how the contrarian in them is disapointed with how mainstream gun ownership is becoming.
For all the other gun bloggers, I would say that the best is yet to come. With the normalizing of gun ownership and concealed carry, we are definately about to enter a golden age for firearms and there will surely be more to talk about then anyone can imagine.
I will also agree that blogging is becoming somewhat of an echo chamber… but I think that too is a short term thing…. but in an effort to difuse the situation, I will refuse to link to this post or any other along this subject matter.
I still think gun blogging is the new media for the firearms industry, and it makes me chuckle everytime I look through a publication by the dinosaur media (gun rags)and see their news and politics coverage… I often remember reading about what ever they are covering on a blog a month or so earlier.
December 7th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Well given that Massachusetts (as well as a bunch of other dastardly states) still suck for gun owners…not to mention the countless southern states that are VERY friendly to gun owners, but are still awash in Jim Crow laws still on the books. And of course the VERY new concept to many states that permitting carry may not actually accomplish anything, the well is hardly dry.
That being said, I’m most certainly a gun blogger, but I make it a point to talk about LOTS of other things other than guns, and throw in a few lowest-common-denominator bits of toilet humor to boot.
December 7th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
When I started blogging (if you can classify what I do as such) I remember reading that first and foremost you blog to and for yourself. I started with an idea in mind, noble and full of wishful thinking and that lasted about a week. I now post what I feel like posting, share what it is interesting to me and if somebody gets something good out of it, great. I define myself not as a blogger but as a lousy pamphleteer who likes kitties, Gun Motivators and has as much common sense a dead gnat.
December 7th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
I blog to give the voices in my head an outlet…
December 7th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
JayG, isn’t that what the fires are for?
December 8th, 2010 at 12:24 am
The only real reason I started a blog was to have an internet identity.
But I am glad to be able to call myself a published poet with my “The Ballad Of Kathryn Johnston”. Thousands of Google hits.
BTW, that’s how I “met” you, Uncle. It’s not just guns. I have my own ideas about guns. It’s also about personal freedom and anti-statism.
December 8th, 2010 at 3:27 am
lol JayG – we’ve always suspected ….
December 8th, 2010 at 8:21 am
I kind of think that most of these replies are really Jay G.
I might just be one of the voices in his head.
December 8th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I mostly blog gun-stuff when I have some personal gun-thing to blog about. Otherwise I sound like a mall-ninja.
December 9th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
I blog as a stress reliever… I run the gamut of ideas and occasionally put up gun stuff that I am interested in. And yeah, Jay NEEDS to blog 🙂