I Don't Vlog

I love the printed word. I love to look at sentence structure and hear the tone I have assigned to the writer. I decide the eloquence of speech when I hear the accent and timbre. I love the sound of certain words inside my head. I roll them around, take them apart, put them back together again. I love to read a word, hear it inside my head, and giggle to myself because the spelling is nothing like the sound. Phlegm. Disgusting when heard, intriguing when seen.

I love to read a good blog post. I enjoy a well written sentence and a cohesive essay. I like to take my time reading interesting sentence structure, intriguing words (sometimes repeating them to myself multiple times), then savoring the after taste when I finish. I also like to determine whether I skim an essay or ingest. This brings me to a trend that some bloggers simply must rethink. Vlogging.

For reasons not understood, some people simply have a gift of writing. Through the organization of their words, feelings and experiences take shape and become personalized. Their articulation brings me to a sudden outburst of giggles, a small sob, a sigh, or simply concern.  I am amazed by the talent in the blogging world.  I know they are intelligent, articulate, and beautiful women.  Then they vlog and my impression is altered.

One of my favorite blogs is written by a woman who is incredibly gifted.  She is also well known.  I am often moved by her writing.  Then she decided to vlog and she is decidedly not articulate in speaking.  I had a difficult time maintaining my original opinion.

I know my writing often takes a circuitous route.  I don't profess to be a fantastic writer.  I do hope, however, that my topic or thesis statement can be ascertained within the first couple of paragraphs.  I know this is not always true, but I generally like to have a theme when I write.  Sometimes I don't and I expect you to skim through, decide I'm full of crap, and click to a different site.  You are not a captive audience.  Hopefully I will write something that is interesting enough to hold your attention for a full minute to reach the end of my thought process.  If I don't, you can leave at any time.

Back to my favorite blogger.  She vlogged.  She sat there and blathered about nothing at all for over two minutes and I still had no clue if she had a cohesive thought.  She cracked inside jokes that I didn't get, talked about the weather, told her audience how wonderful she is and I was already two minutes into a six minute video and completely bored and somewhat befuddled.

I couldn't skim.  I couldn't scan.  I couldn't skip.  And she wasn't interesting.  I yawned and left disappointed.

She is not the first successful blogger to vlog and vlog terribly.  I would fare much worse.  I promise to never, ever vlog to you.  Ever.  Never.  I stutter.  I stammer.  I look stupid.

I will stick to the written word.  Words I can type, see, consider, roll them off my tongue in the privacy of my home, delete, edit, rewrite.  Even as I type, I hear myself whispering the words.  They sound a little stupid.  Yet when I hear them in my head (which is much louder than my whisper, thank goodness), I sound stronger, smarter, and skinnier.

I can sound skinny.  You won't know the difference.  I didn't vlog it.