The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Welders’ Goggles
When I posted the announcement of my mottling video on this blog, the views of that video numbered about ninety. This was after a week or so after it had been uploaded. After I posted it on the blog, the views jumped up to 150 on that very day, and soon that number doubled and will soon triple. It seems that, contrary to my expectations, my blog is more popular than my Youtube channel. By a considerable margin.
I very-nearly shut down this blog a few months ago– out of frustration, mostly. But that would have been a mistake. My Youtube viewers seem to be outnumbered by my blog audience. I think this is due to the fact that a lot of my Youtube subscribers are not big on Youtube as such. They prefer an older, gentler way. The calm dependability of the blog, with its old-fashioned charm, is more to their liking. Mine too, actually. But what we prefer and what is likely to happen are two different things. We are past the technological event horizon, boys. All bets are off. I cannot afford to stay fixed in one spot, as much as I may like to do just that. I’m very concerned about my tendency to want to remain with something old that still works, instead of trying something new. This may be good for the Amish, but it is going to be quite a challenge for me.
Too much of a challenge. No matter how scary it may appear to be, I am always going to take that one giant leap into the new technology– if only because I’m a stubborn bastard and like to do what looks difficult. I’m a show-off by nature and I will show-off when I can, after all.
But now a new hazard rears its ugly head…
Google is messing with my “analytics” in ways I can’t really understand. Or maybe I CAN understand it but I just don’t want to. I just don’t know why I need to constantly help Google to fix problems that THEY ought to be fixing (in my estimation). For example– somehow the old “analytics” are not good enough any more. Not for blogs, anyway. The new analytics require new “stuff” that I just don’t want to learn. It’s an endless treadmill that seems to have its roots (mixed metaphors, anyone?) in the idea of “professionalism.” By “professionalism” I mean the drive to make everything a “profession” so that the gal who cooks your pancakes for breakfast must be a licensed “fry cook” and have a certificate from a school that says she has so-many hours of training in “frying technology” and that she has passed “an approved course of study” and is a member in good standing of the professional association of fry cooks (PAFC) and has completed so-many hours of professional development classes every year.
With this kind of thing branded into the collective consciousness it’s not surprising that Google expects us (me) to constantly “be learning” to stay “up to date.” At this rate, professionalization of blogging and Youtubing are right around the corner. “Professionals” will meet at “serious” conferences and discuss serious stuff at serious seminars. The jargon and the acronyms will flow like concrete– as every TPWON will require a mixy, and every POOM-B8 will need a dose of HARNY-7.
So I plod along. I emit a moan of pain every now and then, but, in the end, I waddle back to my desk to learn what new thing my robot overlords require today. Hail Caesar!