Hello sweeties!
Today I want to celebrate all of us bloggers as artists. Because even if I stand by my opinion that reviews are first and foremost craft, I realised that blogging, as a whole, is a form of art. And while we're celebrating books, TV shows, movies or anything we're passionate about - those works of art - we're creating our own version of art ourselves.
We're not in it for the money, are we? Okay, SOME of us are. But the vast majority of bloggers - at least in the bookish department - not only don't get compensated (if not with a free review copy now and then...most of them not even physical. I mean, ebooks are awesome, and I'm SO grateful when I get one, but of course they're MUCH CHEAPER than physical copies, plus there are no shipping costs), but spend THEIR OWN MONEY on books, giveaways, sometimes hosting. They give something to the world and don't expect anything in return. They just want to quench their inner fire with writing, and create the best looking, deeper, funnier, more emotive piece they can.
It's funny, you know. We can obsess for hours over the right word to use in a review that maybe will go largely unnoticed. We can go on a hunt for the perfect gif to express our feelings. We can stalk the net relentlessly for free vectors to use in our graphics, or - if we feel adventurous enough - spend an insane amount of time tweaking an image to match our vision...or even designing that image ourselves from scratch. That is craft - but not only. Because, as I said, whether we're working with words or pictures or graphics, we have a vision to fulfill, and we pour our heart into it. That, my dears, is art.
What do you think? Are bloggers artists, or crafters, or both? Do you ever feel like an artist?
I think we are crafters -at the very least - others are also artistic - although I don't feel very artistic lol And really underappreciated!
ReplyDeleteMost of us go into this without a lot of technical knowledge and somehow pull off writing reviews, contacting people/handling emails, scheduling, designing and learning coding etc.
I know I've been rather lazy about it the past year writing more mini's than longer reviews. Sometimes when my older reviews get liked on Goodreads and I go back and read them I'm like...damn that was a good one lol Surprised that I was the one who wrote it.
{big supportive blogger hugs}
Karen @ For What It's Worth
Quote: "Most of us go into this without a lot of technical knowledge and somehow pull off writing reviews, contacting people/handling emails, scheduling, designing and learning coding etc."
DeleteYep, there's that too - sometimes we turn into mini ninjas LOL. We learn from scratch/teach ourselves, and we do all kind of things for the love of blogging that we never figured we'd do.
Ha! If your arm gets better you'll have to do some longer reviews this year! 😉 Joking - your short ones are equally good.
Blogger hug returned!
Have I ever told you I adore you? I completely agree - it is an art. And we get both satisfied and frustrated with it just like other artists do (and pick apart our work with a fine tooth comb, sometimes wanting to throw it out, and often cringing at past efforts). There are bloggers whom I don't read any similar content to, but I just love their style so I follow them anyway. If that doesn't mean it's art, I don't know what does.
ReplyDeleteQuote: "Have I ever told you I adore you?"
DeleteLOL, no, you haven't...but I'll take the compliment now, thank you very much! 😘
Quote: "And we get both satisfied and frustrated with it just like other artists do (and pick apart our work with a fine tooth comb, sometimes wanting to throw it out, and often cringing at past efforts)."
Very true!
I'm the same as you when it comes to bloggers - some of my closest friends (and most respected bloggers) hardly read my kind of books, but I love their style. I may not always comment on their reviews (then again, the same happens to mine), but I have fun reading them. And I can see they've worked hard at getting their feelings/thoughts out, choosing gifs, formatting...whatever makes their posts.
This is such a good point. We do, or at least I know I do, really pour our hearts into this. I sometimes agonize over what photo to use for a post's featured image because I want it to be just right. I do have a vision, and I want it fulfilled! We put a lot of work and passion into our blogs, and I guess it is its own form of art.
ReplyDeleteThank you for validating my point! Then again, I can indeed see you striving to fulfill your vision when I read your blog.
DeleteI think bloggers are creators so yes, we're artists and crafters and any other titles we can give words to. I do spend hours, sometimes days perfecting a post, I even fix errors after it's posted. but I really do like those bloggers that just wing it, the ones who can just put up a post and be done with it.
ReplyDeletefrankly, I don't think there is another platform that is more free-form or easier to express ourselves and our passions than blogging. of course you can do that with social media but I find when compared to blogging, social media is too short a form and far too fast and easy to read and ignore, but that's probably me as I'm pretty much very un-social.
have a lovely day.
I'm like you! Especially with reviews (but not only), I can spend days trying to make a post just right - and I fix errors too, even in old posts. In your case, you're a visual artist too, so your blog doesn't even rely on borrowed images and gifs and stuff.
DeleteSocial media ARE "easy to read and ignore". I'm only active on Twitter, and I do like it there because it's a great way to keep abreast of what my friends, authors and favourite artists are up to, and to interact...I even like the fact that Twitter forces you to get to the point in only a few words...but it's totally different from blogging. Also, tweets get buried quickly, but posts are pretty much forever.
This is such a lovely post! I would certainly agree that blogging is both art and craft, as any public writing/art/graphic making is. I can't even imagine getting paid for blogging. When I started out, I never thought I'd have review copies either. It must be its own reward, since only people who truly love it would tolerate shouting into the void about books. 😂
ReplyDeleteQuote: "I can't even imagine getting paid for blogging".
DeleteMe neither! I know there are people who think it's only right that they get compensated for getting the word out for whatever they blog about, and probably think we're crazy...but we're free. We can say what we want about what we want. We do things out of love. This is not a job, and that's the magic of it.
Quote: "only people who truly love it would tolerate shouting into the void about books".
Haha, so true! And I would like to know if people who blogs about other, more practical products (like clothes or make up) feel like this as well...
I felt like you were looking right at me, when you talked about obsessing over the right word. I must hit up thesaurus.com at least 10 times a review.
ReplyDeleteHaha! Of course you used to be a teacher, but I think we all share the compulsion to find the best word to describe our feelings about a book.
DeleteFirst of all, you watch the IT Crowd?! Jacob made me watch it a long time ago and I loved it! It was ridiculous at times, but still fun to watch.
ReplyDeletePeople that want to get paid for blogging are ridiculous. I blog about books because I love talking about them. I love sharing my thoughts with others, and seeing what they have to say on their blogs. Most of my books come from the library, so I wouldn't be getting paid for those anyways. ARCs are a gift and should be seen as sufficient compensation (if that's what you want) for a review. Author's (especially debut authors) are looking to promote their books and don't have an endless amount of money to do it. Aargh -- I could rant about this for awhile.
I'm going to do some deep breathing and try to calm down. ;)
Lindsi @ Do You Dog-ear? 💬
Sorry, I don't know The IT Crowd...I suppose I stumbled on a gif taken from that series...I swear, all my gifs are completely unintentional (except the Doctor Who and Supernatural ones haha).
DeleteDitto to all you said about blogging out of love (and fun), even if it IS hard work at times. I don't even agree on offering beta-reading services for money. When an author selects people for beta, they usually look for someone they established a relationship with, and someone who's in tune with their work BUT capable of criticism - not a random stranger who will read a random book for money. And you still get to read a book for free in that case (though an unpolished one), so why should you ask for money?
This is so true! I love this perspective and you've given me something to really think about, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI thank you!
DeleteGOOD MORNING ROBERTA I HOPE THIS COMMENT PLOPS INTO YOUR BLOGGER MODERATION NICE AND SAFE AND NOT INTO SPAM. It's apparently 3-4am in your area so I hope you slept well.
ReplyDeleteYou probably: OMG, I thought I would get away with this.
Well, too bad. I'm here to INVADEEE all year long and greet you in the mornings when you least expect it! 😜
Anyways, back to the topic on hand. I call us bloggers creators, but that's the same thing as artists I guess. Bloggers like streamers and YouTubers and any other content creator out there - we create stuff. We create content with words on a website rather than through a video or game or another medium. We're creating SOMETHING on something, so I automatically put us as creators rather than artists per se. Like artists, we spend a lot of time creating the posts, and oftentimes we don't expect payment or even make money. Although in the case of streamers and YouTubers, they eventually get a platform big enough to monetize.
(Though on a side note, us book bloggers really do get discredited or dismissed sometimes, which saddens me.)
LOL, you managed to avoid spam jail. My Blogger must have gotten more used to loud morning greetings than I am yet 😂.
DeleteI realise now that I only talked about bloggers and maybe (though indirectly) Instagramers and such, since I mentioned images - but not Youtubers and the likes. I didn't mean to discredit their work in any way! It's just that I'm a blogger surrounded by bloggers, and it's easy to forget that there are other ways to create content out there (I don't follow any Youtubers because I'm so much more at ease with reading than listening, what with English being an acquired language).
Quote: "We're creating SOMETHING on something, so I automatically put us as creators rather than artists per se. Like artists, we spend a lot of time creating the posts, and oftentimes we don't expect payment or even make money."
That's a good observation. Maybe "artist" is more of a word that you use around people who make things from scratch - though we often happen to write posts that aren't book reviews or book aesthetics or such.
This post of mine happened to be timely, since I heard there's been some fresh drama involving writers and bloggers - though I don't know the specifics. (To be honest though, I scheduled this one a few weeks before the drama even happened...). It's sad (not to mention, counter-intuitive) that some writers have to be the bloggers' worst enemy. It should be enough that some people who don't blog must treat our endeavors as a joke 😢.
Well, your blogger knows more than you and probably loves me more. I'm also a lot more at ease with reading, unless there's closed captioning available. Otherwise we're stuck making mistakes and ruining my hearing even more (we can thank my first job for that).
DeleteAnd it really should - it's a frequent misconception that blogging is easy when it's really not at all. But maybe your brain secretly knew the drama would happen. ;)
ALSO GOOD EVENING ROBERTA YOU MUST HAVE THOUGHT I WOULDN'T HAVE COME BACK HERE BUT INSTEAD BE ON THE MOST RECENT POST BUT NOPE NOT TODAYYYYY.
Quote: "Well, your blogger knows more than you and probably loves me more."
DeleteNope. It's just that I taught it well 😜.
And it's morning this time LOL. Try again 😂.
I don't think I'm terribly 'artistic' but I adore working on posts, trying to think of what colors to use, how to format the text and what kind of headers to make. But yes, I definitely believe blogging is an art and craft - at its core it's writing about something you are (hopefully) passionate about, thinking of creative, interesting ways to do so. I loved seeing this post especially given the negativity some authors have shown towards bloggers recently. <3
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about the same thing...the latest blogger drama...though this post was in draft far before it even happened, so I can't take credit for its being timely LOL.
DeleteQuote: "at its core it's writing about something you are (hopefully) passionate about, thinking of creative, interesting ways to do so".
Beautifully put! and so true.
I'd definitely say we're both, though creativity is sometimes VERY hard to come by. I particularly FELT it when you mentioned hunting for the perfect gif which may or may not go unnoticed. Have I mentioned that I LOVE it when you comment on such details? You make me and the work I put in feel seen lol.
ReplyDeleteI know you and Vera (and Clare now) put a lot of effort into gifs and graphics...I mean, I know because it shows. And I'm a sucker for that stuff (emojis too, for that matter). So it's my pleasure to comment on it, and I'm happy if it makes you happy!
Delete