Is there such a thing as an ideal arts blog post? And if so, what would this star of the spangled Internet firmament look like? Would it read like a diary entry or more like a newspaper or magazine article in terms of tone, reported content and style? Would it seek to offer an opinion or would it rather aim for impartiality? Would it be Talk of the Town-like or more along New Yorker feature lines in length?
These questions might seem idiotic, but they are worth thinking about for anyone who’s in this game.
I bring the matter up because even though the general consensus seems to be one of “anything and everything goes” on the Web, not all arts blog posts are created equal. Or, rather, even though they may be created equal, they don’t always receive the same reception.
I’ve always liked to mix things up as an arts blogger. Sometimes my pieces are 1000 words in length; sometimes they barely hit 250. On occasion the posts are reported; at other times they’re opinion pieces. More often they’re a combination of both. Sometimes I deal with serious matters and at other times I indulge myself in interesting trivia. On occasion I put myself in the middle of the post and write directly about my own experiences; and elsewhere I leave myself completely out of the equation.
What I love about blogging is the complete freedom I have to cover the arts in as broad a way as possible. The variety is what makes arts blogging so much more interesting, often, than what appears in the mainstream press.
But what I’ve noticed over the past 19 months since I started blogging is that certain kinds of blog posts — both my own offerings and those of fellow arts bloggers on the artsjournal site — tend to achieve a higher profile than others. It seems that “serious” blog posts that resemble traditional newspaper features and well-crafted opinion pieces seem to attract more attention from readers and are more likely to snag the front page on the artsjournal site than, say, confessional posts or posts that are lighter and perhaps more personal in style.
This is obviously a massive generalization. There are days when scant little witticisms eg the post I wrote a while back about Mike Leigh’s suspenders falling down, get quite a bit of attention, while more weighty and/or well-researched pieces about such topics as memory theory go seemingly unnoticed.
But if there really is a hierarchy, I wonder if the arts blogosphere will end up resembling traditional media? I hope not. It’s the never-know-what-you’re-getting aspect of culture blogging that keeps this form fresh.