I’m sure everyone is sick to death of posts about WordPress foul ups, the pros and cons of the block editor and other assorted blogging problems. Here’s another one. Sorry.
I ‘ve come to feel that the problem is not so much that WordPress has brought out an editor that many of us don’t like and don’t need. It is their attitude towards the bloggers who dare to complain.They have brought out a product that they think is great and they think that we ought to be grateful and stop complaining. I really feel that they need to stop calling their tech people Happiness Engineers. Apart from the fact that it is a pretty cheesy name it is certainly not appropriate as they don’t seem very interested in making people happy.
A lot of us have wondered who is the target audience of all this madness? Originally I thought it was mobile phone bloggers but lots of them are having problems too. All the new blocks that have been recently added seem to be for business bloggers and I think that WordPress is following the money.
I just finished reading a post from someone who was comparing blogging with social media and explaining why blogging was a better way to “grow your brand.” I do agree with her comments but I think that most of us hobby bloggers are not interested in growing a brand. We just want to write and share our thoughts and our photos or art. Everything is a brand now, even people apparently.
Another thing that is different about this new generation of bloggers who want to be”influencers”, another buzzword, is that they are taught to think of their blogs in terms of how to attract advertising rather than the content. Naomi and I started doing a course on Udemy earlier this year. I would never monetise this blog or the doll blog because I consider our regular readers friends, but we wondered if it might be worth trying to do it with some different ones. I like to write and take photos so why not? I won’t go into the problems I struck with the course itself here but it was obviously aimed at people who were already in business and wanted to earn money from blogging. Basically, to do this, the tutor suggested starting several blogs on different subjects chosen by analysing keywords to find out what would attract more views and therefore be suitable for using Google Ads. It didn’t matter if you didn’t know much about the subject. It would have been a sausage factory of blogs.
The tutor made what I felt were conflicting statements about blogging. He spoke about needing to write good content but he didn’t put a lot of emphasis on the writing as much as making sure you had all the right keywords. etc. I felt he was a little condescending when he spoke about hobby bloggers. He also suggested reading other bloggers posts and commenting in order to attract more traffic to your own blogs. I agree with the reading and commenting part, you can learn a lot from reading other people’s blogs, but not, as he suggested, adding a link to your own blog in your comment. We have all had those comments on our posts, people who use the comment section to advertise themselves. That is not what it’s for and I personally delete that type of comment if it’s obviously a business related link. I certainly was not going to advertise myself in that way. I guess I am not cut out to be a business blogger because I actually need to care about the subject I’m writing about.
I am very much afraid that blogs of this type, all keywords and SEO and no passion may be the future of WordPress. I hope not.
Our Other Blog: Two Sisters and Two Points of View 
Grrrr. Buzzwords. Marketing spin before content. Money money money. I dislike it all extremely.
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Me too.
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I blog because I enjoy writing. Mine is the free plan 😊
I found the new editor a little difficult in the beginning but now I am used to it and am not facing any problem. I am sure you too will find it easier as you keep blogging. Regards
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I have actually been using it for quite a while with no major problems but many blogger friends are having a hard time with it.
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That’s a very accurate point. It’s indeed about the attitude.
Talking about alleged businesses or alleged experts and influencers. I saw a huge influx of them recently on WordPress. Recently I got followed by quite a different crowd compared to back then. Out of curiosity, I checked out some of their blogs. And it’s the usual wannabe bullshit. Motivational trainers, wannabe SEO experts, and so on. I am pretty sure many of those charlatans won’t maintain their sites longer than 3 months when they don’t get traffic fast enough. Especially the SEO niche is full of quack doctors, copycats who have no clue what they’re writing about. Search engine marketing is a topic I’ve been following for over a decade. So, especially in that area, I find out fast if someone is a faker or someone with knowledge. But given how many of those poor souls pop up here on WP now too, we can be sure that Automattic seems to drum up customers like that recently. If the quick buck that can be made with them is better than a long-term happy customer, remains to be shown.
Talking about the so-called influencers, I recently had a good laugh when I discovered a YouTuber who speaks from my soul… if you want to get amused about influencers, with some really dark humor, check this out…
There is a whole series called “Narcissists and #SOCIALMEDIA” on his channel. Type this into YouTube search if you want to have a laugh. Super dark commentary sometimes but I mean, he’s right. What are those “influencers” thinking? What a fake world are they living in? See them in Germany regularly on the streets as well, with behavior you probably would only have seen in a nut ward back then.
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I’ll have to check that out Dennis. I have noticed some of these same sorts of blogs amongst new followers so I realise that it is unlikely that they are following because they like the blogs so much.
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I had a look. It’s a good series but those people in the clips are idiots.
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Yeah. Probably the worst examples but I’ve seen similar people in the wild too. People standing on active railways to take selfies, people climbing bridges, or taking selfies on busy streets and stuff like that. Like, what could go wrong? And why do they think they’re important? Because of the dopamine increase, they get from the likes they gain on the selfie number 535 (who knows how many they shoot)? It’s not even talent or something to take hundreds of boring pictures of myself. I would understand it if a street magicians record her/himself and his show each day, that’s art. But I just can’t understand people who have no talent except being obsessed with their appearance to the point that they do nothing except taking selfies of themselves in inappropriate situations and places. Minor cases are those we discussed a few times in the past, like acquaintances around you taking selfies in the middle of an active conversation and stuff. It’s not just stupid, it’s bad behavior. It’s not far away from narcissism either. Like the sarcastic YouTube guy, I don’t want to believe that this is more and more normalized in our society. Sadly, social media brought us this behavior.
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It did and while I haven’t seen anything like this in person yet I don’t doubt that it happens in Australia too. We have complained about tourists doing selfies before but standing in the middle of the road and then being upset because there is traffic is a new low.
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I felt much the same when I studied economics, Vanda. Sure, people have to make a living and for many that means online these days. But seriously, the buzzwords are enough to turn me off.
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I haven’t had much trouble with the new editor, except I don’t seem to be able to justify text anymore, but it does seem it’s all geared for business and ‘influencing’. And do those doing the most influencing, always seem to be those least qualified for it? Thanks WordPress, but I’ll keep my wee blog as it is and value substance over style.
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Substance over style is a good way to put it.
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