It’s a while since I’ve written (as per), but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been getting my blog fix. Alongside writing this, I read a lot of blogs, and I thought it was time for a bit of an update (on the state of blogging, since I’m clearly the foremost authority on that).

Recently I’ve noticed that aside from the blogs I have on my feedly, I’ve also been reading a lot of blogs posted across social media. I’m glad to see that we’ve moved on from the Buzzfeed epidemic which swept across the online world in mid/late 2014, but I’m not sure how I feel about the type of posts which have taken over. They’re a bit symptomatic of a trend on well-known blogs and multi-user sites: a downturn in general credibility.

Let me explain. Sites like the Huffington Post, where I used to go knowing I’d be reading a well-written, well-researched, and appropriately pitched article are now letting all kinds of people loose to use their name, and it’s drastically compromising their credibility. A perfect example of this is an article I read recently on jezebel.com. Now, we all know my views on internet feminism, and so it’s not like I’ve ever been a massive jezebel reader/fan, but that’s not to say that their articles aren’t normally well written and well reasoned, if a little bit militant.

Not this article.

It’s a comment piece on the number of black performers in the world of opera, and being a bit of an opera fan it naturally caught my attention. I sat down to it thinking I’d be reading a measured look at an under-represented group within the art form, and maybe dealing with ways to engage more singers of diverse ethnic origins into opera. Instead, what I read was a childish rant about how a woman was unwilling to appreciate that she was obscuring another theatre-goer’s view, and then decided to turn it into a race issue when actually it was an issue of her inability to react politely. She begins the article by suggesting that opera is the preserve of the “geriatric elite” and explains that’s the main reason she goes, so I really should have known not to read on.

The article is everything wrong with blogging. It’s inflammatory,  turns one person’s annoyance into a race issue, and then drags in opera and suggests that it’s an issue with the art form. Given that the writer clearly doesn’t have any real appreciation for opera, I found it all a bit cheeky. I reached the end of the article frustrated that she’d misappropriated my art form to air her pathetic and childish views. Not only that, but the article wasn’t well written, and featured a couple of shameless bouts of self-promotion. Not what I expect from a well-reputed(ish) blog.

Needless to say, I’ll be avoiding jezebel.com for the future, because to me it lost a mountain of credability the moment it published this piece (you’ll notice I haven’t linked to it, because I don’t really want to give them additional views – if you’re curious, a search for “jezebel opera” should turn it up).

So here are some blogs which I read, which you should read, and which aren’t compromising everything which brought me to them in the first place: –

The Bloggess
Cowdy Calling
Diary of “That Fat Girl”
Smitten Kitchen (because not all blogs have to be rife with views)
PostSecret (still doing good stuff, still ad-free)

This is only a short list, but then it’s only for starters. I’m not here to dictate, just to suggest. I suggest these. You’re welcome.