Been some vanishings in the night of Manosphere blogs and writers.
Rivelino at Alpha Game went private after being discovered by a co-worker.
Novaseeker had stopped active blogging some time ago, but stayed an active commenter on many. He’s announced retirement even from that.
OneSTDV simply said “I quit”, then explained why and said posting would be minimal. But mysteriously posting has continued. But my experience of announcements of quitting suggests that actual quitting usually follows eventually.
Samson’s Jawbone also announced he would be cutting back on posting too.
Roissy may have changed hands again. It was “Roissy” until late 2009 when it appeared he was vanishing in the aftermath of the Lady Raine thing. Then returned as Citizen Renegade, and now the posting name has changed to “Heartiste”. Maybe it’s just a name change, it just tips off my radar is all.
Blogging is deceptive. On one hand it’s terribly easy to do it badly. On the other it’s enormously difficult to do well. But most readers tend to understand the easy parts better than the hard ones. One of the greatest challenges is to maintain the effort over the long haul. After the emotional high of people liking your writing fades after the first few months, you don’t actually make any money at it comparable to your effort put in to writing the blog. Then it eventually becomes a soulless grind as you slowly start turning into a literary chump.
Thursday morning I got a formal and apologetic email from Amazon.com ending my affiliate status. It’s all to do with a war over sales tax and Connecticut passed a law demanding sales tax on any sales through affiliate links, so Amazon.com terminated all Connecticut affiliates. In practical terms, I just got screwed out of about $2,000 a year. Dammit, I was just excited about the Supreme 90 Fitness DVD link too.
Thursday night I got struck down by a mysterious and sudden GI upset that had me taking naps on the bathroom floor. The soft and squishy bathmat for my birthday a most welcome and beloved artifact. Friday I stayed home and drank ginger ale. Much the same today. Some solids.
So anyway… life continues on.
Sometimes life is all a grind. Sometimes life does sucker punch you right in the gut. But the blog has a meaningful purpose greater than just me feeling good (I give), and it has a meaningful product that people are buying (I receive). So there is a balance.
And also I’d really prefer not to fail at making this a full time gig.
