You flip open your computer with innocent intentions. You’ll only spend a few minutes here and there before you get down to business. But a few clicks later and your hooked. Again. You wonder how things got this out of hand, how you could let yourself waste so much time doing something you know you shouldn’t.
It’s seductive. It’s destructive. It’s blogging porn.
Blogging porn is voyeuristically viewing how other bloggers write, design, and monetize, fantasizing about their careers, lives, and circumstances, thus, avoiding the real work and goals of your own internet space. Blogging porn is hurting bloggers everywhere, killing creativity, stifling individuality, and sabotaging productivity.
We are quick to recognize how sexual pornography can ruin lives, but do we realize other forms of porn exist and have related negative effects? Consider some of the problems with actual pornography and you’ll begin to see why blogging porn is a similarly slippery slope.
- Porn damages relationships. It hurts both the user and the people around them, not only in the present, but in the future as well. Scanning the internet, endlessly comparing yourself to others, leads to jealousy. You covet the platform, the design, the writing ability and soon you are too consumed with envy over what they have and you don’t that your friendship dwindles. Existing relationships are tainted and future relationships are stopped before they have a chance to blossom.
- Porn promotes unrealistic expectations. It capitalizes on out-of-the-ordinary (often digitally enhanced) people doing out-of-the-ordinary things that most real people don’t do. Similarly, blogging porn pits your skills against industry leaders who have teams working behind the scenes, who blog full-time, who are exceptionally gifted with talent and resources. The average blogger can’t dish out thousands for a stellar design or devote hours to creating viral content. Comparing your blog to the top 1% of bloggers will leave you dissatisfied with reality.
- Porn is distracting. The internet has made pornography easily available to the masses at any time of day or night. Blogs are equally accessible. How many of us have allowed a quick “inspect element” turn into hours of drooling over other blogs’ theme and social media icons? The time spent oogling other blogs and judging that post could be spent investing in our own blog.
- Porn cheapens the real deal. Something is always lost in translation when you endlessly consume the unrealistic. What was once fun, meaningful, and fulfilling is left wanting because you’ve been inundated with a deceptive standard. However small or amateur your blogging efforts, they are worthwhile because they come from your heart and your passions (I hope!). They are the real deal. Don’t let blogging porn diminish the work you do and the effort you put forth.
- Porn leads to more, more, more. It’s never enough. The pornography vortex redefines success. You can’t be satisfied with what you have – you need to have a podcast or an online course or an ebook. Those things often come at the expense of time and energy you should be expending elsewhere. And for what end? Another platform for you to compare to others?
I’ve fallen into this trap too many times. I’ve let hours go by as I Iooked and coveted. Repeat. My envy has driven wedges between friendships and kept me from connecting with others. I’ve let blogging porn make blogging more of a commodity than a ministry.
I don’t think you need to delete your feed reader or stop looking at blogs for ideas and inspiration, but blogging pornography is a real danger if you let those practices consume your time and energy.
Blogging is hard work; but it can have a real impact and build real relationships. Don’t let blogging porn cheapen your work and steal your blogging joy.
photo credit: AhmadHashim & Ivana Vasilj via photopin cc
Emily C Gardner 
Thank you for this. God is reinforcing some of my recent decisions with this eloquently written post of yours. I am so grateful you listened to Him, which I’m sure wasn’t easy at all! I can’t begin to tell you how much you just blessed me with this peek into what God is doing in you.
I’m so glad this spoke to you, Rachel! I read an article about ministry porn and thought the concept totally applied to how I was feeling about blogging.
Wow! This was great, Emily! It definitely could be expanded to include different forms of social media (Facebook, Pinterest) that cheapen reality, distract us, tempt us to comparison, etc.
I’d like to read the article on ministry porn. Can you share the link?
Absolutely! This is the excellent article by Luke Simmons. My husband is a youth pastor and has definitely experienced the negative effects of ministry porn. When we were discussing the article, I couldn’t help but see the similarities in the pattern applying to blogging (and social media!).
Interesting! Thanks! :)
Interesting! I never thought about it like that. I feel that way about Pinterest sometimes: it’s so easy to feel discontent when your house looks nothing like the houses you see there, or that I don’t do elaborate crafts or activities with my son. Good food for thought here!
If I were deep down honest with myself, I wish my blog made money, looked super professional, and had a larger following. I think that’s why I’m so susceptible to blogging porn – looking at other people’s blogs, wishing I had that reach or those pinnable images. It distracts me from my passion for writing and the reason I have the blog in the first place.
I totally agree that Pinterest can have similar effects!
I would NEVER have thought to compare blog-viewing with porn, but you make a really good point. Thanks :-) I feel healthier!
I think the comparison applies to many more things that I would have realized…
Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ve known I’ve done this for years.. Mostly in the area of content envy. Like, “oh, shoot! I could have written that viral post myself! Why didn’t I think of that?” As I sit and wonder why I’ve never had a viral moment after 7 years of blogging. The lessons I’ve learned this year have been so valuable toward letting go of all of this, especially in the middle of launching a new blog and podcast ministry. I’m a work in progress! And I thank you for giving me a new way to think about what I’ve been doing. ;)
Amanda, that is precisely where I struggle the most too. There is grace and peace in the realization that we are indeed works in progress. Prayers for your new ministry! (I’d love to know more about both…)
As a relatively new blogger who is still figuring this whole thing out, I absolutely loved this. I am so grateful my friend shared this, so in turn, I will share this with others as well. Thank you – Thank you – Thank you!
Thank you for sharing Janee! Blogging can be life-giving, but it can be life-sucking as well. We choose how it goes and this is one area I have to constantly choose the life-giving aspects.
This was a brave thing to write about, as a blogger. You go girl! Yes. I think it’s an especially fine line to walk because some blog viewing / social media hopping is an important part of networking and inspiration. But how many (hundreds?) of times have I been sucked in only to realize an hour later what an inefficient and unproductive stretch of time that was. Thanks for inspiring me to stay on track, for more than one reason.
Moderation and motivation are the key, I think, which are not always easy…
i am VERY anti porn and starting to become pretty anti social media too. i don’t use facebook or pinterest and i’m am starting to think of deleting my instagram account. i have to be very picky about the blogs i choose to follow for this reason.
I am also VERY anti porn in all its forms – including this one!