Notes from a relatively new film blogger

1) Having been laid off by the local newspaper due to budget cutbacks (and having been replaced by some young vain goon who likes Adam Sandler), the local film critic reluctantly decides to start up a blog. He has never liked the word “blog.” It sounds like a cross between a bog, log, and blah, a source of verbal diarrhea, a place where people blurt out overly personal confessions, and a forum where old unsuccessful writers go to die. The film critic decides that this time, though, things will be different, even though Samuel Johnson’s ominous words keep running through his mind: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

2) For a time, and after hitting upon the pretentious moniker of The Film Doctor, the new critic drops many reviews on to his new blog. During this early, naïve period, he also greatly enjoys tinkering with the font, design, and background color of his blog until he realizes that some of the best film critics don’t care a whit about the look of their blogs, but instead rely upon good writing instead. Also, in his innocence, the film critic writes several severe, extravagant posts making fun of other established critics in his quest to suddenly attain worldwide renown.

3) The worldwide renown does not happen right away. The film critic begins to notice that every time he writes about a contemporary release shown at the local Cineplex, about 500,000 other bloggers do the exact same thing. This sense of massive competition and redundancy gives the man pause. Every day, an exponentially growing batch of new film blogs appear, many of them writing about newly released movies. So much commentary, so few readers. One day, he learns from a blog expert, everyone will have his or her own website. Is this a good thing?

4) The new blogger also tries his hand at writing some comments. His first comment elicits an amused guffaw from the other readers of that particular post. The new blogger resolves to be more careful in the future.

5) As time goes on, the new blogger realizes that when he mentions another blogger’s post, the other blogger might respond in kind, creating a sense of being noticed. For a moment, the new blogger feels a sense of achievement.

6) That sense of achievement begins to fade as the new blogger realizes that some of his competition are not only very good writers, they also seem to have massive amounts of time to theorize about every frame of every great film. The influence of these other writers, however, remains one of the truly positive things about the film blogging universe. This constellation of critics challenges the new blogger to write better than he ever felt obliged to when working for the newspapers. Of course, he can only try, but the intimidating fact of the surrounding excellence proves one of the best, enduring benefits of blogging. In this respect, he feels particularly honored when he gets his blog listed on the blog roll of a critic he admires.

7) After six months, Google starts to include more of the new film blogger’s posts on various people’s searches. Ironically, a lightly dashed-off review of a minor horror film proves by far his most popular post according to Google. Also, just when the new blogger really gets busy with his job in the fall, that’s when his blog suddenly gets the most notice. His wife, by this point, would prefer that he never bring up his blog again in civil conversation.

8) Now, seven months later, the new blogger finds himself with enough positive reinforcement to continue, even though he still has moments of doubt. He knows more than ever the terrible truth of Samuel Johnson’s words: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”