Friday, September 26, 2014

Day 634: Lurking

Blogging is sort of like talking to a brick wall.

Parents seem to say that phrase a lot in connection to their children and the instructions going in one ear and out the other, making it seem as if they're talking to absolutely no one. But I honestly feel like the term has never fit better than on the internet. On average, if I blog every single day as I should (and really do try to), I spend probably 15 minutes blogging. Now, that's not a lot, but think about it this way.

My friend Emily also goes to SNC. She lives literally only a couple of blocks away from me and we frequent the same buildings on campus, but yet I hardly see her for more than 10 minutes a week, much less a day. There are some friends you have conversations with for hours. Your roommates, for instance, are generally people you see and talk to for more than just a few seconds a day. But with a blog, you do all the talking, at least for the most part. Internet "fame" is a hard thing to come by, but the only way you really come by it is if you keep doing what you're doing because you like doing it. If you're not passionate or serious about your work, then nothing's going to succeed. I mean, yeah, I'm still about 25 days behind on my blog, and I get behind a day or two each week, but that's minor in comparison to the fact that I am currently writing blog post 636. That's a lot of days, a lot of conversations and a lot of time. If you take that average of 15 minutes per blog post, which is just on average NOW and not at the beginning or for some of the longer post, it means I've spent at least 159 hours blogging. I have spent 159 hours talking about Disney on the internet. That's crazy.

But it's still like I'm talking to a brick wall.

One of my roommates asked me about blogging and if I can see how many people view it and everything and lucky for me, the answer is yes. I CAN see how many people are viewing my blog each and every day. As I type this, Everyday Disney has had 28,406 pageviews in it's history, and on the average day I have around 50 views. So you sit and read those stats and you know that there are people out there reading what you're writing, but very rarely do you get someone who comes up and says "Hi! I read your blog!"

There's my mom and my friends, of course, who read my blog constantly, and then there's me, who writes the posts, but aside from that, it's a question of "Are there actually people out there?" I tried to explain this concept to my roommate, using the term "lurking" and she thought that was funny, simply because it sounds sort of creepy. But it's true, I know there are people lurking out there because I do that too. I get it, we don't all have time to comment on blog posts the time. I follow about 40 different Disney blogs and very rarely actually comment on them.

So I'm going to issue a challenge.

In the month of October I'm going to try and comment on one Disney blog post a day and become a more active Disney Community Member. It won't be here, but it will be other places, and let's see if we can all join in and be an even closer community. I'm not talking about necessarily promoting what you do, but just joining in on the discussion. Let's all stop lurking!

And to those of you who are out there and read my blog, thank you! Feel more than free to comment or send me a message or something and introduce yourself, even if it's not here and is instead on Twitter or Instagram or something. I'd love to meet my readers!

Thanks again to everyone who's out there lurking! Much love to you all!

Have a magical day!


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