“Blogger Burnout” is a frequent joke around here.
But it’s true.
Andrew Sullivan quit blogging in late January 2015, as we reported at the time Breaking – Big Blogger Burns Out. Sullivan’s announcement focused mostly on a desire to change paths:
Why? Two reasons. The first is one I hope anyone can understand: although it has been the most rewarding experience in my writing career, I’ve now been blogging daily for fifteen years straight (well kinda straight). ….The second is that I am saturated in digital life and I want to return to the actual world again…. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged. I want to write long essays that can answer more deeply and subtly the many questions that the Dish years have presented to me. I want to write a book….When I write again, it will be for you, I hope – just in a different form. I need to decompress and get healthy for a while; but I won’t disappear as a writer.But this much I know: nothing will ever be like this again, which is why it has been so precious; and why it will always be a part of me, wherever I go; and why it is so hard to finish this sentence and publish this post.
Sullivan now is the focus of a report at CNN, Andrew Sullivan: Blogging nearly killed me:
“The truth is, I had to stop primarily because it was killing me,” Sullivan said Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. “I used to joke that if blogging does kill someone, I would be the first to find out.”He described the grueling pace that he maintained along with a small editorial staff.”This is 40 posts a day — every 20 minutes, seven days a week,” Sullivan said…On Sunday, while speaking to veteran journalist Jeff Greenfield, Sullivan said that the “crushing” workload was only part of what made his job so overwhelming. The experience, Sullivan said, was often dehumanizing.”Here’s what I would say: I spent a decade of my life, spending around seven hours a day in intimate conversation with around 70,000 to 100,000 people every day, ” Sullivan said. “And inevitably, for those seven hours or more, I was not spending time with any actual human being, with a face and a body and a mind and a soul.”Sullivan said the job resulted in lost friendships and minimal contact with his family. He said his husband, whom Sullivan married in 2007, called himself a “blog widow.”
This all rings too true.
[Featured Image: CPAC 2013 Award for Most Underrated Blog. Five years of blogging at the time, and all we got was that lousy “most underrated” award. 2014 was a little kinder.]
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