Follow Me

This isn't meant to offend anyone at all and believe me I feel honored and flattered by those of you who enjoy checking out my blog. However, recently I've been feeling pretty troubled by one of the elements of blogger. I was just discussing with a couple of my bloggy friends the newish Blogger feature of "Followers" and how I was a bit uncomfortable with the whole concept. First, I don't like the name they've given it...followers. It makes me think of a cult or worse, it harkens back to high school and the pursuit of popularity. Ironically I was part of the "in" crowd at my tiny Texas school (not sure how or why) and I do recall vividly the pressure to have the right clothes, right shoes and be at the right parties. I don't ever want to live that life again. Number one, I'm not in high school anymore and I don't want to feel like I'm in a popularity contest to see how many followers I have (or don't have). I don't blog for the masses, I blog to have an additional creative outlet and to share with my family and friends far and wide. I enjoy folks stopping by, but I don't want to be influenced or censored by who just might be following me. I want to feel free to say what I'd like. I don't want to feel like my blog isn't cool enough, witty enough or hip enough. I don't want to wonder, "hey ten people stopped by and didn't comment on my newest creation" or think yesterday I had five followers and now I only have four...who did I piss off? Am I not follower worthy? I don't want blogging to become work or something I become neurotic about; where I begin to agonize countless hours on the look of my blog or what I should post next, or if my pictures are nice enough. I mean this is just something fun I do and a natural progression for that ten year old girl that first started keeping a diary. Lastly, it's sort of the same reason I haven't joined the facebook revolution and don't twitter. This is enough for me. This is just me being me. As much as I love knowing there are people that want to keep up with my blog and I'm happy that you've chosen to be a subscriber ( a much less offensive term in my opinion) I'm going to disable the followers feature. In the end it may seem like it's about semantics, but it's just something I feel I have to do. I hope you'll add me to your blogroll. Please know that I love your comments and emails, I hope you'll continue to leave them. I read every one of them and I'm so glad to hear from you, and by all means stop by regularly...I just won't be thinking of you as a follower.