Six Frustrating Realities of Being a Blogger

Blog Posts 7 Minutes

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.” ― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

When you first start a blog you may think it’s going to be all sunshine and rainbows but there are less than pleasant aspects to blogging as well. Blogging can be frustrating and disheartening at times. It can make you want to pull your hair out or leave you upset and you might think about giving it all up. It happens to the best of us, and if you stick with it long enough you’ll probably experience it for yourself. Let’s touch upon some of these sore spots which I’ve uncovered during my time as a blogger.

Most People Don’t Care About Your Personal Life

Careless

Let’s be real – there are going to be some bloggers out there who you will become friends with and they’re going to be excited for every single little thing that you post. You might even make friendships that resonate even outside of the blogging community and that’s awesome.

However, in my experience, I’ve noticed that if you’re looking to become the type of blog that everyone can get behind, you need to dial down those personal posts to a few times a week at max. By personal posts, I mean those types of posts which are basically tributes to your life. When people are searching out interesting blog posts to read, unless they are already a strong follower of yours, they tend to gravitate towards posts that offer them something in return. Everyone’s time is precious and most people look to blogs as a way for them to expand their minds, they want to learn from you. So, the posts that are most popular are usually those posts which give something back to the reader. Informative posts. Reviews. Researched articles. Etc. That’s not to say that life posts can’t be interesting, but they have to be from a very unique perspective about a topic that they’re unfamiliar with. Use them sparingly.

If you start posting too much personal stuff, just watch your views/readership plummet.

Prepare to Be Judged

Judgeme

Unfortunately, this rule doesn’t only apply to the blogging world, but the real world as well. When you expose your entire life to a group of people online, on social media or in real life, prepare to be judged by many. Some people are going to admire you and think you’re wonderful, and some are going to just pick apart your flaws.

We’re all just reaching for success in our own ways, or writing for personal reasons, but it reminds me of something that I’d once heard a while ago…

When it comes to being successful, there are three types of people in this world:

  • There are those who seek to become something impressive by working hard on themselves, working hard on their goals, their careers and never giving up even in the face of adversity. Determination, blood, sweat and tears make them. They are confident enough with themselves to also be supportive of others.
  • There are those who seek to become more impressive than others by trying to light everybody else’s work on fire. They find flaws in everyone’s personality and they nitpick because they are really insecure. If they can destroy other’s perception of anyone else’s accomplishments, then it makes them feel more accomplished in comparison.
  • Then there are also those who just don’t care about being successful that much.

No matter what you do or how you do it, you’re going to be judged occasionally. It’s life and human psychology is a funny thing. People may take things personally that were never even intended to be taken in the way that they were received. People might not like you because you’re different. People might not like you because they think your blog is better than theirs. You might have the same name as their ex boyfriend or something stupid like that… People are funny creatures… Just prepare to brush off the odd conflict or hurtful statement. Don’t let it ruin your blogging experience.

Your Audience Has A Mind Of Their Own

People

This one is less disheartening, but just kind of a funny thing that I’ve noticed since starting in the blogging realm. Some of my favorite posts or poems that I’d written have not ended up being my most popular and well-received posts, but others that I thought were alright or “filler” posts ended up taking the spotlight. Which just goes to show that I don’t really understand my own audience at times as well as I think I do.

For example; Kristian and I recently collaborated on a story which we both thought was pretty damn good. Very dark, tragic and gruesome at times, but well-written. We nailed this from two perspectives and it brought us a lot of views and some terrific compliments, but compared to many of my other posts it was not liked nearly as much as I had expected. Some of my viewers told me that it was a bit too dark and graphic for them. *Shrugs* This happens sometimes. I wouldn’t change the write-up because it made both of us excited to write it and no matter what happens, I still have to write what I enjoy. I’ve built this blog for my amusement first and darkness seems to consume me!

On the other hand, one blog post that continues to surprise the hell out of me with how well it’s done is an article I wrote about the benefits of journal writing. I had never expected this one to do so well, but it continues to impress me. It’s also one of these slow growers which still continues to get me views to this day for some reason. This is one of the pleasant surprises of the blogging world!

Sometimes There Is Drama!

Drama

I don’t plan on mentioning any names here, because I’m above that. But, there have been a handful of bloggers which have brought drama into my life while blogging. Either via my personal e-mail or straight to my blog with negative or hurtful comments for one reason or another. Not everybody comes into blogging with the goal of building each other up, to respect differences or to live and let live. Some people just want to stir the pot or to put it bluntly, be an asshole. They don’t know the right way to diplomatically deal with other humans.

I’m quite an empathetic person too, so sometimes when I’m riled up it takes me a day or two to calm down from it and shake it off. I hate that bullshit. You may notice that in some ways, there are “cliques” in blogging just like there were cliques in high school. Being the typical misfit or outsider that I’ve always been, I try to stay outside of these cliques but associate in some ways with most of them. I don’t like being limited to a small group of people, and I tend to do better by being a pleasant passer-by. Maybe that’s why I’m a wolf. Personally, I’d rather start my own community with all of the great people that I’ve found along the way.

Akismet Anti-Spam Breaks Down

Heads up to all of you bloggers out there who aren’t aware of this, but Akismet, which is the filter service used by wordpress, sometimes breaks down and adds your comments to a spam list. If you’ve began to notice that your messages have not been getting replies, or if another blogger tells you that you’ve ended up in their spam comments, it’s worth sending Akismet an email about this. I’ve had to do it twice already! Here’s the contact form.

Blogging Is A Lot Of Work

Dirtyhands

Writing daily posts is not for everyone! More frequent posting usually means a trade-off between quality and production. Although not always the case, blogging daily and still producing great quality posts can take up a lot of your time. Most people aren’t privileged enough to have this amount of free-time in their lives, and in a few weeks when I’m in school, I may not either. I’ll adapt as I need to.

So pace your blog posts accordingly, but try not to slack on the quality. Quality is the most important thing if you want repeat visitors! Once a week is good enough if that’s all you can produce as long as the post is the freaking bomb. The second that blogging starts to feel draining and not fun anymore, is the second that you should take a break, even if just for a little while. Having some scheduled posts can help to get you in times of need, but in the end, a successful blog is often the blog that sticks it out in the long run. So, just don’t burn yourself out and quit.

Even after you’ve got the hang of producing great content, you still need to remember that one of the biggest aspects to crafting a successful blog is reading other’s posts and networking. This takes up a good chunk of time as well! The bigger you get, the harder it is to keep up with everyone.

In Closing

This post is not meant to discourage anyone from blogging, I still love my blog and I love blogging. I don’t think that I’d quit it entirely for the world, but it’s not perfect either. Like social media, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the drama or by putting too much value on stats, likes or other’s judgement. It’s necessary to create healthy boundaries for yourself and with others sometimes. If it begins to stress you out, walk away and come back to it another time in a better frame of mind. I wish you all the best! Take care.

What are your blogging pet peeves? Comment below!

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Published by The Wolf Boy

Philosophy and English Student. Crypto Enthusiast. Philosopher. Writer. Father. Rebel. Stoic.

Published

60 thoughts on “Six Frustrating Realities of Being a Blogger”

  1. 🙂 I am glad that you have discovered that blogging daily is not for everyone (Blogging is very demanding mentally).

    Well, Akismet is not perfect; a blogger will eventually find innocent comments in their spam area.

    My pet peeve is people pressing the “Like” button without reading my blog posts.

    Thank you for another great blog post, Mathew!

    Liked by 4 people

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      1. 🙂 If you happen to have the WordPress App on your smartphone, you might have experienced a single person liking numerous of your blog posts in a very short space of time (One can tell by the sound that the notifaction makes).

        Liked by 3 people

  2. Great post!! I completely agree with you that “most people don’t care about your personal life.” It is frustrating for me, because I am the type of person that DOES care about other peoples’ lives and I want to share about my own! But like you said, I have to try to limit those types of post.

    And about being judged – I haven’t even shared my blog with anyone in my personal life because I know that some of my family would be judgmental about it.

    Liked by 4 people

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    1. Thanks Hannah. When I first started blogging, I was wayyyyy more open about my life and my identity. I shared much more about my vulnerabilities and I tried to share my blog with friends and family way more too.

      Then after a few months I started to make myself somewhat more of a mystery. Share more metaphoric experiences of my life rather than blunt reality and only post occasionally about my personal life and it’s helped me feel more secure with my blog.

      I think some people do care about other blogger’s life. It’s just that everyone’s time is limited, so they want to use their time in other ways usually. It can still be a frustrating discovery though to learn that.

      Thanks so much for commenting!!! I think your blog is awesome, even though I’m not much of a baker 😉

      Liked by 3 people

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  3. I’m pretty pro-deleting and pro-blacklisting when it comes to comments that make me feel crappy. There’s enough of that in the world without having it on my blog.

    I know what you mean about good posts going unread and filler posts being popular. Sometimes I think it’s just luck of the draw as to who happens to be online the day a particular post is published.

    Your journal post might be getting regular traffic from a social media. I did a post quite a while back on naming emotions, and someone ended up repinning it on Pinterest and I get a steady stream of traffic because of that single pin.

    Oh the adventures of blogging!

    Liked by 4 people

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  4. Really true… You need to dial down the personal stuff, very true. I try to only include bits of it in my poetry so that people think of it as, I dunno “artistic inspiration”?
    It kinda sucks that you have to change and adjust your posts so that people won’t get pissed off or something. You can’t have it all, I guess :/

    Liked by 3 people

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  5. Brilliant advice well worth remembering, Mathew! Very true what you explained about pacing – I know the risks of burnout from trying to doing daily blogging early on and almost giving up because I was overworking myself with limited new content. Dialling it back to once a week has definitely helped improve my writing & built my confidence up again, since I’ve given myself much more time to polish each post up.
    Totally agree with you about sharing personal stuff – I’ve cut back on Awards & Challenge questions because I didn’t feel comfortable sharing tributes to my own life & be judged on it – putting much more focus on my stories instead has helped me add something that more people can enjoy / relate to, so I’m really glad I’ve enjoyed that side of blogging.

    Liked by 4 people

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    1. Yes, I’ll be taking a lesson from you and adjusting my pace as my life becomes more hectic. I’m also starting to lose my love for awards. Not to mention the logos are often really ugly.

      They can be a nice way to network sometimes though.

      Thanks for sharing and commenting 😊

      Liked by 2 people

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  6. This was a great read Mathew.
    I was very personal when I started my blog adventure, but not so much now… you can read my poems and it can be me.. or not… I like that mysterious part…
    and I posted a poem once that I was not happy with, but it totally took off both here and there .. and experienced the opposite …. you described it well.
    Well, I could talk about this for hours… I stop now..
    Take care❤️

    Liked by 4 people

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  8. Right now mine is that I have NO IDEA how to grow my blog. My knowledge/understanding of SEO can be measured in a mouse’s teaspoon and despite my best efforts, I simply don’t get it. I’ve also declared myself “the most technologically inept millennial on the planet” and I think my lack of general technical garbage is really hurting me. I’ve tried reading articles and tutorials, but my eyes glaze over 2 minutes in. I’ve also tried looking for brick and mortar classes but it’s hard to find something that fits in with my schedule of working 2 jobs. Sigh.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. So, here’s what I would say to this
      … I’ve never once understood or even cared about SEO. The only thing about SEO that even really matters is that people link back to your blog from time to time to give your website more relevance on search engines.

      Most of a person’s followers come from just interacting with other bloggers and if you’re able to build a community around your blog, collaborate, participate in awards occasionally, join challenges or just comment on others work more often, the numbers will just grow naturally.

      I’ve found the more I make my blog about others and less about me, the better I do. Just my two cents 😉🙏🏻 Good luck!

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      1. Well it’s good to know that not everyone spends hours deciphering SEO! I do try to interact with as many other bloggers as I can on WordPress and in Facebook groups. It definitely helps, but I feel like I’ve gotten a bit stagnant over the last year or so and am just looking for new avenues to expand. Fingers crossed! And thanks!

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Not hate comments, but I’ve had some bloggers reach out to me outside of wordpress and get mighty upset for one reason or another. Usually when they want something from me and don’t get it.

      I’ve also had a few give unsolicited criticism which irks me and I’ve had a few bloggers tell me exactly why they think my poetry is shit.

      The WP community is not bad but still some idiots out there with poor people skills

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  12. “Blogging can be frustrating and disheartening at times. It can make you want to pull your hair out or leave you upset and you might think about giving it all up.” So tragically true that I can’t hep but laugh 😀

    Yeah, there’s one blogger who followed my blog and she totally exaggerated her reaction to my every post. She obviously did not read any of my post. Few month she tried comforting me for a dead relative but my post is actually about an unfair death of someone else ( not related to me ) and I was only writing how tragic I found the whole thing. I caught her in many more stances so in the end I silently removed her. Just seeing her name made me depress. However, I’m lucky enough not to get judge too much yet haha 😀

    I’m number 1 in the types of people with a dash of #3 and I love returning the favor for people who are sitting on number 2 😂

    Hateful people is everywhere, they thrive by knowing they made someone’s day awful, but I believe that good always win, there are more positive bloggers than negative ones that’s what I believed.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Oh yeah, I try to just brush off those people but yeah that’s super frustrating. There are a few bloggers who I’ve banned from being able to comment on my blog lol…

      Removing them from following doesn’t really help much because they can just follow again after.

      True, some haters love the attention so I usually just stop giving them anymore of my attention immediately. Doesn’t mean they don’t infuriate me hahah….

      Thanks for sharing! 😀

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  13. This is, honestly, the only post I’ve read about bloggers giving advice to other. I usually find them so boring but this one is 100% real! Don’t let it get to your head though! xD

    Just kidding, but one of my pet peeves is when I put so much effort into a post and people either
    1-blindly like it
    2-Say ‘Congratulations!”
    It’s obvious that they didn’t read. I didn’t force them to, so why would they do that???
    I also hate it when I nominate bloggers and they simply ignore me without apologizing or saying no. You’re allowed to say no, aren’t ya?

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Thanks Nour for your back-handed compliment. lol

      I still think it’s nice that a blogger says something simple like congratulations when they could say nothing at all, but I understand.

      I think I miss a lot of my nominations because I just don’t look or I’m not made aware of them. I have no problem telling people I can’t participate or I’ll often just answer the questions in the comments if I don’t want to post it on my blog. Thanks for sharing Nour 🙂

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      1. I did not mean for it to come out like that…oops 😂 Sorry!

        Mhmm…At least you make it perfectly clear whereas you don’t know if you somehow made the one who was nominated uncomfortable/offended or sumn. My pleasure 😊

        Liked by 2 people

  14. I can relate to most of the points you brought up!

    Blogging is mentally and emotionally draining and frustrating at times and there have been multiple times I’ve felt like just giving it up. Sometimes it’s hard to power through.

    I have also tried to dial back the personal posts just a bit. And I also find it is hard to write great content daily.

    If I’m being honest…my blogging pet peeve is when I see people post something that is like two sentences long for every post and they get like 50 likes 😅 I’m like whhhyyyy? Maybe that’s just me being petty and a little jealous but it’s the truth.

    Great post Mathew! It’s relatable, informative, and true.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Lmmmmaaaaoooo! Yessss!
      No honestly, I think it’s funny when someone writes a haiku or something and it’s popular. There’s no way that they do that for the majority of their posts though or everyone would stop reading.

      I’m glad you could relate. For some reason, if you express your life in poetry it’s very much okay though lol. Maybe people relate more to poetry or something?

      Thank you for commenting and sharing.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. I think people relate to poetry more. I find my poetry posts tend to be more popular than my parenting posts. But that’s what I love about poetry – the connectedness of it.

        Liked by 2 people

  15. I just do what I want how I want. Of course I love comments as we all do, but I don’t rely on interaction when I set down anything in “print”. I try not to be obnoxious, but face it, Trump gets to all of us at times🥴

    Liked by 3 people

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  16. Interesting post… What irks me most? Bloggers who post daily… I don’t have time to read it all…

    The blogs I like most are those ones that give me something, could be something to smile about, a funny annecdote or story, some useful info, snippets of daily life.

    But please don’t make it boring and please let YOUR personality shine through. I am capable of doing my own research, choose my own books and work out my own travel itinerary and plans… I read for pleasure and blogs should fall into that category..

    But these are my opinions. Feel free to disagree.

    Lieve

    Liked by 2 people

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      1. I know but I like to support people… It wasn’t meant as criticism of your blog but I like reading blog post in case I miss the good ones… But to be honest, I don’t read all of them. Life is too short. I prefer to live and have my own adventures and experiences rather than living through others’ experiences and adventures. I try to strike a balance because, as you say, to become a good writer, you need to read… lots!!
        Lieve

        Liked by 2 people

  19. I find it weird also that I interact with a lot of bloggers and commenters on others blogs sometimes daily, but they never even stop by. Some of them (and in very positive interactions) for years now. I’m not fishing, but I always at least look at their stuff once in a while even if I don’t follow.

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    1. I’ve found that my own personal best practice, is to at least check out the blogs of those who comment and regularly visit my site. After that, I will occasionally browse my reader for new viewers and to keep up with the blogs I follow. I don’t mind dropping bloggers from time to time who I don’t interact with on equal terms.

      Liked by 1 person

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  20. Very on point. I totally agree that quality is a huge aspect to successful blogs. As I grow my own blog, I like to look to other bloggers for inspiration and if a post isn’t well written or there doesn’t seem to be much thought put into it, other than just putting some content up, I’ll move on. But posts like this that clearly demonstrate some thought went into it, and, like you say, provide some informative content, then I’m more likely to stick around and be a more dedicated follower.
    Awesome post!

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Thanks a bunch. Most of our time is limited so it’s only natural that we search for those blogs most worth our while, and if not, then those with whom we develop the best interpersonal relationships. Thanks so much for your kind words and best wishes with your blog! 😁

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