James Enge recently posted a short exploration of the perils of too much freedom to publish — what happens when a writer runs off at the mouth online and bad poison drips out. Not a good way to make friends, James says, or advance a career. Maybe blogging isn’t such a great idea for writers, especially those with extreme opinions?
Being delightfully barren of any opinions outside of my own sad private world of railing against the injustices of pan & scan DVD transfers and loathing green orcs, and also being completely at a loss as to what to blog about at BG this week, I weighed in with my own ‘but what about . . . ?’ clause that posits that, in this age of fracturing culture, is it really such a bad thing to piss people off when you’ll be making at least as many people happy?
All of this means it’s possible to believe, and to be passionate about, absolutely anything these days and find strength in numbers. It’s a beautiful and simultaneously terrible thing, as shut-ins, bullied kids, or geeks like me find solace and support in much the same way as racists, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted whack-jobs. No one is ever alone in holding an opinion in our fractured modern world of a myriad subcultures, and one thing I’m certain of is while the internet will bring every ill-conceived rant to the attention of millions of those who disagree with it and hate the author for it, it will also galvanize a legion of admirers.
Of course, we aren’t quite as culturally fragmented as all that just yet . . . and the one thing that holds true in any system is, if you offend the dominant norms of the group you wish to be a part of, no matter how small, you’re finished. So, for a writer to spout off about stuff that alienates the people that read his sort of fiction, and the editors and publishers that put it in print, well, that’s just plain dumb.
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Or you could go nuts on a fan and look unprofessional to a lot of people, like some think of this post in Neil Gaiman’s journal.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/George%20R%20R%20Martin
Personally, I think blogging is dangerous and I try to stay away from sensitive issues and potentially offensive comments. Does that make it bland, sure. But am I safe, you bet.
I can only imagine if Harlan Ellison had emerged during the age of the blog . . .
Your example of Gaiman reminds me of another aspect of this, how very well-established and popular entertainers can get away with far more than the midlisters. Not that ‘GRR Martin isn’t your bitch’ is all *that* incendiary, but still a peon might have caught some clack for it, while Gaiman would clearly have to turn into a baby-eating cannibal or something to alienate his fanbase.
I’m not actually saying there is anything wrong with that, if anything we should be more forgiving across the board unless we are talking about truly heinous behavior.
Luckily, my own tendencies are to avoid arguing about most subjects because, in my experience, it is very seldom that a person emerges from a debate with their minds changed anyway, so what’s the point? To prove I’m right? Life is too short.
I think one of the issues is that many folks for whom “blogging may be dangerous” came into it midstream, with little or no thought to possible future consequences.
These days, someone starting out fresh, I’d recommend that you figure out what your audience is FIRST. If you want a “general audience” – stick to talking about your writing, friends, neat things you’ve found on the web, etc. In other things, subjects that will not piss off members of a general audience.
If, on the other hand, you are playing to a particular constituency that holds strong views and are happy restricting sales to that group – have at it: you’ll make your core audience happy that you are a public face for their (extremist) views, and the folks you’ll be pissing off wouldn’t be buying your stuff anyway…
Good advice — I stick with the more ‘general audience’ approach myself.