UlasanAnime.com – This piece delves into the author’s thoughts on journalism and blogging, presenting a personal and introspective reflection rather than a structured analysis.
The author begins by acknowledging the meandering nature of their thoughts in this post, offering a preemptive warning to the reader.
1. Journalism. The author expresses a recurring regret about the volume of content they produce for Jtor, feeling that they could write more effectively if they had dedicated blocks of time to focus on crafting pieces suitable for specific media outlets. This approach, however, is deemed unproductive over time. They view their blog posts as a form of scaffolding, akin to a car lift or jack, where they elevate their “narrative” to a more understandable level for the reader.
This is why, the author notes, it’s unsurprising when their blog posts, like the one about Sasami, gain traction on platforms like Reddit. The intention behind these posts is to build a bridge of understanding, explaining complex or unclear elements. However, this is often not achieved, leading to the blog’s relatively low readership.
The author identifies this as a persistent challenge since 2008. They joined Jtor because it was one of the few sites that functioned like a true “blog” and could influence the discourse, bridging the gap between sites like Sankaku Complex and ANN. Jtor offered a community that understood the author’s perspective on blogging, had a readership, and possessed genuine credibility.
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CR News is mentioned as the closest alternative found since then. However, the author feels it is overly influenced by the same sources as ANN and leans too much towards a Gawker-esque style, lacking the desired “bloggery-ness.” While acknowledging the decent coverage, the author points out numerous areas for improvement in their editorial quality, recognizing that perfection is elusive.
The financial aspect significantly complicates the situation. Producing high-quality news and editorial content in substantial quantities, at the level the author envisions, would necessitate full-time hiring, likely multiple individuals, beyond mere platform administration. This level of funding is largely unavailable in the anime space. The reliance on social networks like forums, 4chan, 2ch, and Twitter hinders the growth of professional journalism sites, making the market opportunity difficult to define.
This financial reality, the author believes, contributes to a key issue: readers often discover content not through direct visits but via established communities. These communities are already familiar with existing discussions, forming the “road” or “surface” level where the “jack” of engagement needs to be applied.
The author suggests that ANN’s success might stem from their ability to “give less damn,” focusing on writing news as news. ANN’s forum serves as a good example of maintaining this approach.
Conversely, for enhanced reader experience and engagement, more effort is required. This might involve leveraging fansubs for reviews, discussing Japanese fan meta, or intentionally stirring controversy. However, the author emphasizes that this isn’t the only path, likening the process to a “jack” or “car lift” rather than an escalator, highlighting the significant effort involved.
The author then poses a question: is this what “journalism” truly means? Perhaps it extends beyond journalism to encompass the art of writing about a subject in a way that genuinely engages the reader.
From a reader’s perspective, the author observes that the community can be overly quick to judge and lacks open-mindedness towards newcomers. The long-term value of sites like Sankaku Complex, Seventh Style, or ANN’s forum is often overlooked. The author laments the scarcity of individuals who engage with these platforms with a desire for improvement and a willingness to contribute to making them better. The sentiment is that if even 4chan can evolve, other platforms can too, and the call is for collective responsibility and proactive engagement within the community.
The author wonders if Colony Drop is capable of change.
2. Blogging. When people discuss blogging, the author believes they are referring to the platform itself. The author dismisses Twitter as “microblogging,” urging those who consider it as such to re-evaluate. The mention of “blogging” evokes thoughts of data preservation from services like Google Reader, rather than platforms like Gawker or Facebook, or even most conventional blogs. The author acknowledges that anime blogs are sometimes discussed in the context of tournaments, but this leads to semantic introspection. The focus shifts to platforms like wordpress.com and Blogger.
The author feels that the internet community has moved beyond fixating on what bloggers are or do. A typical blog post, in the author’s view, functions as both a forum thread and a reminder of past episodes, like Valvrave, without needing to rewatch the video. This is seen as beneficial, similar to the numerical summaries in Psgel’s episodic posts, or the image walls characteristic of Metanorn or Kurogane, complete with comments. Each has its audience and purpose.
However, the author questions if anyone is critically examining this landscape and considering how it could be improved.
The current state is described as a collection of disconnected entities. While excellent content exists, there’s a lack of effective means to connect individuals with similar interests. The impending demise of Google Reader is seen as the loss of a valuable tool for this purpose, a point the author intends to dwell on due to the unique utility it provided.
Over the years, the author found blog discovery tools like tournaments and Twitter to be the most useful, with Animenano being a surprisingly close second. The author also browses feeds, clicking on interesting content to discover new writers and their perspectives, prompting curiosity about how others approach this discovery process and expressing a desire to learn about their methods.
