Apr | 03 | 2008

Death and Blogging

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorial, Opinion, Writing

I don’t consider myself as a particularly morbid person and death does not bother me. However, I haven’t really thought about blogging and death together. Not that they are strange bedfellows but these two topics don’t really naturally come together, right? Well, unless your blog’s main topic is death, of course.

I was scanning some blogs earlier and I ran across a post entitled “Death provides lively copy for blogs.” That definitely caught my attention! Glenn Abel, the author of the post, presented an interesting topic for blog posts – death. He says:

Death doesn’t faze newsrooms. For editors, the order of the day, every day, is gallows humor — whistling past the old graveyard.

I bring this up because the truism that death makes good copy applies to blogs as well. There is nothing morbid about this, unless you make it so. A well-written appreciation of someone’s life can be a shared experience for you and your readers.

Death also keeps readers coming back. Obituaries are among the most-read features for older readers, many of whom begin their day by viewing the parade to the grave of their age’s leading personalities.

I suppose it is all about perspective. If you look at the topic of death (for blogs) as a celebration of someone’s life, then yes, it would certainly make for “lively copy.” For example, if your blog is all about video games, the death of an icon in the gaming world would be a good topic to write about. Still, I understand that some people may be a little iffy about posting about death. What is your take on this?

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