It’s Tough Being a Blog Writer [A Personal Perspective]

Disclaimer: This editorial was meant to be published in two parts, but ultimately I decided against it. Therefore, there was a two-week delay on the blog between posts. The whole text was meant to be much shorter, but it happened to (figuratively and literally) grow on me as I was writing it. In consequence, I apologise for the length of the whole thing.

 

Introduction

I have to be honest from the get go and explain that I was really hesitant to start writing this post, and ultimately I decided against it for fear of sounding too pompous or egocentric, but I received a positive dosage of inspiration and encouragement after reading Phoenix Talks Pop Culture Japan’s 5th Anniversary Post – Getting Personal?. After learning about her concerns about blog writing, I decided to share my own experiences and provide a small toolkit filled with pieces of advice for aspiring bloggers, but also personal musings about the craft of writing. Therefore, I divided the whole text into subchapters, so it would be easier for you to navigate through it. So here we are, please buckle up and be patient because this is going to be a slow ride.

 

How It Started

     The running theme of this editorial is the fact that I am my own worst critic, so I am rushing to call this out: I was never a skilled writer. My journey with this wonderfully exciting craft began in my teenage years with writing fan-fiction stories in my native language. To be honest, I sucked at every form of writing in my native language, be it fiction or non-fiction. Either guiding a narrative or making for-and-against arguments were the tasks to which my mind was not accustomed to.
     However, it was in high school and during my university years, when I started studying English for real, and this reinvigorated my passion for writing, but this time in a foreign language. Each school writing assignment (essay, story, article, you name it) was regarded by me as a personal challenge and I always tried to do my best with it: be creative, use decent vocabulary, maintain correct structure, etc.
     The process of writing, especially academic papers, got me to a point where I felt confident enough that I could write something of my own in English, which was not an assignment. In view of my enthusiasm towards Asian Cinema, I decided to start a blog centering on movie reviews. That was eight years ago.

     I do not want to get into the technical details of my first steps with the Blogger platform (playing with HTML and other shenanigans), so let me cut to the chase and say that I regard many of my early movie reviews posted here (see the Archive for years 2015-2016) as very basic and at times rudimentary, filled with unnecessary nitpicking and negativity.
     Of course, I did not know it at the time, but I lacked experience in writing reviews, but one more thing that was also amiss concerned good knowledge of Asian Cinema in general: the names of filmmakers and actors, the dates, major influences, etc.
     Thankfully, these two issues got resolved with practice. Indeed, practice is the first major step for every blog writer. Do not give up and keep on writing. I was at a point when I wanted to give up blogging. I was so critical of myself that I was genuinely convinced my writing sucked, and that I was not generating any creative input. I thought that I was good for nothing as a blogger and nobody out there does not have even the slightest incentive to read my stuff. On top of that, at that point in my life, I was battling an illness that was slowly and painfully destroying me.

     Thankfully, I managed to regain my health and it was then that I regained my peace of mind. I became less critical of myself and I started noticing small signs that people actually read something on my blog. This gave me the motivation to write more, and to better myself as a blogger, and to become more active even beyond the blogosphere.
     From that point on I learned that I should not do anything in my power to please the prospective readers (in other words, to give my texts some sort of overarching narration) but to look at films in an objective manner and write about their pros and cons, what I liked and I what I disliked, and also try to find out why I felt in this or that particular way about movies in question.

 

Beyond the Blog

     The recipe for a good review/article/editorial sounds easy, but believe me, it is easier said than done. There are many texts out there on the internet written in 400 words or more that seem to be reviews, but are just too pretentious, nitpicky, or straight up boring. Of course, the authors frequently do not see any problems with their creations, and proceed to create pamphlets or definitive guides on how movie reviews or critical analyses should be done whilst running their sites like cotton fields, profiting on the good will and free work of the contributors. To stay out of trouble in the Wild West of the internet, I will leave these people unnamed.
     Obviously, I met such “esteemed movie critics” (because it is hard to call them proper bloggers or reviewers) during my writing endeavours outside of the blogosphere. This is not to say that my experiences in this regard were entirely negative. My first non-blog writing gig took place on MyDramaList in 2018 and the experience couldn’t be more positive! I responded to the new writers draft announcement (they used to post such back in the day), got in touch with an editor, wrote my first editorial with much trepidation (it was a Weekend Movie Recommendation list), and the positive response of the wonderful community only encouraged me to keep on writing, and to keep on tackling more interesting and more challenging topics. MyDramaList truly became my second home in the vast abyss of online communities.

     I also greatly enjoyed contributing editorials to Grimoire of Horror. I dare to say that if it had not been for the enthusiasm and encouragement of the admin of the site, Thomas Norman, I wouldn’t submit anything there(!) because I do not consider myself to be a horror fan. What is more, I regard it as a privilege to be able to provide contributions to J-Canuck’s KayoKyokuPlus blog, the definitive site in English which is centered on City Pop music and beyond.
     Therefore, if you want to try your strengths outside your blog, just go ahead and do it! However, if you happen to encounter any sort of toxic people who may be wanting to take advantage of your craft, then kindly remove yourself and try your luck elsewhere. In addition, if you are afraid to start your blog due to the fear of putting up with technicalities, then hooking up with a team of creative people contributing for one site may be a good alternative for you.

 

Writer’s Burnout

     Evidently, if you keep on generating content for an extensive period of time, you will suffer from burnout sooner or later, but do not get discouraged by this. Treat lack of motivation as an opportunity to relax yourself. What is more, do not set for yourself some rigid dates for blog posts or editorials for other sites. I learned this the hard way. You need to remember that your private life comes first and foremost, regardless of how important your interests seem to you. If you get proper mental rest, then new ideas will start coming to you on their own, and you will be able to reignite the creative spark yet again. Don’t worry, just let it go.

 

Plagiarism

     This is a topical problem, which should be addressed more often by content creators. It goes without saying that we live in an age of digital immediacy, but unfortunately there is an enormous amount of internet users out there who lack proper education about ownership and copyrights. In pursuit of recognition and instant gratification (or sometimes out of vanity), they steal other people’s work and put it out there as “their own”. This practice is the most visible on YouTube with channels shamelessly stealing trailers from each other or worse. One Youtuber may “get inspired” by the contents of an interesting video and make a very similar recreation of the original. In addition, a Youtuber may simply translate an article from a popular site and turn it into a video.
     I am really surprised that someone even stole content from me. A few months ago, it was noticed by the MDL community that a certain Letterboxd user was copying and pasting reviews from the site onto their profile. I was shocked to see that this thief even took stuff from my blog, but there it was out in the open. Thankfully, after multiple reports, Letterboxd banned the account.
     As a result, we all should be wary of our texts on the internet. Of course, proper citation and attribution when someone wants to quote us is more than acceptable, but content stealing is a practice beyond the pale. If you see that somebody plagiarised your work, report that person and/or get in touch with the admins of a hosting site. You can also reach out to the thief and directly confront them. In some cases (but not always) the culprit will get scared and delete the stolen text. To make sure that nobody steals my stuff, I sometimes randomly google my articles and check the search results.

 

Youtube Quantity over Blogging Quality

     Since I mentioned YouTube, allow me to expand on the problem with that particular platform. I have nothing against good YouTube videos, but in my opinion, many modern video essays are designed in a very shrewd manner. Oftentimes (but, then again, not always) these focus on clickbait topics, which are poorly researched and edited in a way that decreases our attention span (TikTok also excels at that). Consequently, blogging loses the battle with shiny, visual narratives time and time again. I believe the best example of what I have in mind is the video called How Star Wars was saved in the edit. It is basically a video editorial that on the surface seems highly informative, but it is actually filled with misinformation on the topic which it strives to present. After watching this, please give a shot to How "How Star Wars was saved in the edit" was saved in the edit (sort of, but not really), a two-hour dissection of the aforementioned essay which exposes every bit of misinformation. This video, in contrast to the previous one, is an exemplary instance of stellar research.
     What I am getting at is that YouTube is definitely a more powerful tool than blogging platforms when it comes to getting people’s attention. However, the desire to become popular shouldn’t be your main goal when writing. Just be passionate and diligent in what you are writing about and people will appreciate your work. They may not turn up in great numbers, but they will most definitely read your stuff and leave genuine feedback in contrast to bots who make basic, uninspiring comments under popular videos.

 

Spam

     Speaking of bots, this reminds me about the issue of spam. Regardless of which platform hosts your blog, you will always be plagued by spammers who will try to leave comments written in broken English that will also contain links to shady sites. Seeing such comments crop up a lot may be annoying, but there are means to fight it: you can set up captcha verification, make the ability to comment only for logged in users, or turn on comment moderation. In this way, you are in total control of the spam content and you can prevent it from appearing on your blog.

 

Pressure to Create vs. Emotional Laissez-faire

     One more thing which I wanted to mention in this editorial is the issue of time. In general, I just write about what I personally find interesting. To me, it’s just fun, especially in view of the fact that I don’t get paid for doing it. My only struggle, however, is to find time to write because I work full time at the moment. This, consequently, creates tension because very often I am unable to prepare my blog post for a weekly update.
     My advice is once again: Don’t get stressed out and be patient. If your blog schedule is interrupted by work or private life, let it go and try to get back on track next time. I admit that the lack of time is annoying and infuriating at times, but peace of mind is the most important thing. As a result, at a snail-like pace I am currently working on a new editorial for MDL and upcoming blog projects.

     All things considered, this was my personal, simple, yet long-ish toolkit for bloggers. I have never done this before, but to end the whole thing on a positive note, allow me to give special shoutouts to people who continue to inspire me on my writing journey. Not all of them are writers per se, but their content is always icing on the cake. So, my thanks go to Rise from Phoenix Talks Pop Culture Japan; Daisuke Beppu; SumiTheCat, Penel, Reika and many other kind souls from MDL; Joanne from Letterboxd; J-Canuck from KayoKyokuPlus, the admins of Asian Cinema Enthusiastic group. I could continue on indefinitely, so let me end it here.

 

Epilogue

     To be honest, I do not aspire to the nowadays trendy term “film critic”. If anything, I resent that kind of categorisation. In a way, I regard my writing as a chronicle of my cinema journey. I may be a victim of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I learnt a lot during the past few years and I keep on learning. Thank you for reading.

 

Acknowledgement: The title of this editorial was inspired by Otoko wa tsurai yo (1969), which was translated to English as It’s Tough Being a Man. All credit goes to Yoji Yamada and Shochiku.

Image sources:

Feature image: Drive My Car (2021),

How It Started: In the Mood for Love (2000), Zokki (2021), Beloved (2022),

Beyond the Blog: Fish Story (2009), Extreme Job (2019),

Writer's Burnout: A Better Tomorrow II (1987),

Plagiarism: High Risk (1995),

Youtube Quantity over Blogging Quality: Battle Royale 2: Requiem (2003),

Spam: Zokki (2021),

Pressure to Creature vs. Emotional Laissez-faire: A Scene at the Sea (1991), Hanagatami (2017)

Epilogue: Chungking Express (1994), After the Storm (2016).

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