Blaugust

It Actually Worked

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Yesterday was a bit of a ride. I have to admit it has been a while since I have seen quite this much excitement and activity around Blaugust. Since 2016 the last time the Newbie Blogger Initiative took place, I have personally focused a lot more of my effort on the whole “getting new bloggers” aspect of this event. I am not sure what combination of events actually triggered this but this year we have more folks who have never participated in Blaugust than I think we have ever had… past that very first year. We still continue to have a trickle of new signups and since yesterday’s post, we added eleven. The number that I am staggered by is we have had twenty-two people sign up that have never participated in this event before.

It does make me wonder if the whole “Blaugchievements” concept is actually working as intended. Essentially there are two specifically that could be triggering this, the first being that there is an achievement for promoting the event and the second being actually recruiting a friend. Whatever the case I am pleased as punch because this event as a whole has sort of turned into my counterargument to “blogs are dead”. In order for that to be true, we are going to need to keep refreshing our numbers with new blood flowing into the blogosphere. If nothing else… this year seems to be doing that and I am thrilled beyond intelligible words.

I’ve been trying to keep my blogroll updated with the new signups each day and similarly, I am keeping the list on the media kit updated as well. However this morning I wanted to take a minute to highlight all of the first-timers who decided to do this thing. What I find most impressive however is that most of these fine folks have no connection back to me. If anything I love that this is maybe becoming less about me and more about the community that we are building.

I think a few of these sites might be still in progress, but I applaud the start nonetheless. I still remember my very first blog and getting it started and the struggle it was to muster the courage to post anything. Technically speaking I think Tales of the Aggronaut is my fourth blog in the grand scheme of things, with the others long lost to the sands of time. There are times I wish I had landed on something back when I first started and stuck with it. Not that I think I would have enjoyed e-fame, but I might have even been as well known as someone like Lum the Mad.

I have a new side project that was inspired by the discord yesterday. This version of Blaugust ran in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 with a weird thing called Blapril also happening in 2020. During all of this, I have kept a series of spreadsheets keeping track of the blogs that were participating and a number of other details. I think my new goal is to take all of this mess, normalize it, and then create a master spreadsheet to track who participated in which years. This is honestly going to be a bit daunting because each year I have mixed things up a bit and it is not like all of the spreadsheets contain the same data. I hope to at least by the end of this current event to have cobbled together something for tracking purposes.

Other than all of this… I honestly am feeling a bit rudderless when it comes to gaming. I know in a few weeks I will be back to Path of Exile with the start of a brand new league, but in the meantime, I am not sure exactly what I want to play. I am picking away at Dragonflight Alpha but with the limited testing that is going on, I have already played through the two zones I have seen twice and left relevant comments. I’ve been playing quite a bit of Red Dead Redemption II and then last night for whatever reason I landed in Outriders. I hate when I am going through one of those “I have nothing to play” phases which is clearly wrong given my massive steam backlog. Once the new PoE League starts I will have that sense of purpose again and all will be well. For now, I am just going to play whatever happens to suit my fancy.

First of Blaugust

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Good Morning Friends! Today is the first official day of Blaugust and we are already starting to see a great number of posts trickling out into the ether on the #Blaugust2022 hashtag among other sources. If you are curious about what Blaugust is, you can check out the official announcement page. However, if you don’t want to click through at its core it is a festival of blogging designed in part to spur folks back into regular blogging. It began its life as a challenge to try and get people to blog 31 times during the month of August. Over the years it has morphed and changed as needed and now is more a general stirring of activity with the hopes of keeping the fires of blogging lit. Every year we get a new think piece talking about how blogging is dead, and we serve as an anachronistic wall attempting to keep it all live.

I know for me my blog ceased to become something I did for others and now is something I do for me and my own sanity. My blog is effectively a daily journal of what is going on in my life and helps to serve as a temporal anchor. So often every week looks like every other week, but when I commit my thoughts to the blog, I can always go back in time and find out when this item happened. From there I can often reconstruct a matrix of sorts of events that happened in sequence near each other. Generally speaking, if something was significant, I probably wrote about it. So this blog started in 2009 and captures the death of family members, the arrival of new pets into my life, and all sorts of other key events that I might want to remember at a later date. Which I guess is weird considering all of this started its life as a World of Warcraft Warrior Tanking blog.

The Truth About MMO Content Creators by Josh Strife Hayes

I often listen to YouTube videos as though they were podcasts while doing other things, and last night I listened most of the way through “The Truth About MMO Content Creators” by Josh Strife Hayes. In the video, he gets a good number of YouTubers that over MMO content to sit down and answer some questions. Towards the end of the video, he tackles the concept of whether or not to specialize and this really hit home for me. This is a topic that I see coming up almost every Blaugust, especially as folks start new blogs. Essentially there is a double-edged sword that if you specialize in a specific MMORPG or other game, you are likely going to inherit a baked-in audience of folks who are interested in content about that game. If you really get engaged with that community it might even open up other opportunities for special content creator events or maybe even further down the line… some sort of official community management position.

Those of us who have been at this blog game for a while have known MANY bloggers who have eventually found their ways into the ranks of a specific game company that they were covering. It is absolutely an exit strategy from blogging that can and does happen. However, I took the other path because I knew that as my own interests changed if I was going to keep a blog going… the blog itself needed to change with me. The life of a generalist however is a weird one, because people have to essentially stick around because of you… instead of the content that you happen to be creating at a given time. I have a massive bounce rate among my readers because I tend to go through periods where I hyper-fixate on a specific game and create a significant amount of content for it.

A Random Photo from Outriders

So if we take Outriders for example as a random game that popped into my head. When I have been going through one of my periods where I am playing a lot of it, I might legitimately write something about the game every single day. During these periods of fixation, this means that someone might stumble across my posts and follow me because they too are super interested in this game. However, when eventually I move on to talking about something else, it can lead to a pretty jarring experience when I randomly shift to talking about building things in Minecraft for example. To the consumers of your content, you are often viewed as a monolith attached to a specific topic that they first engaged with. I’ve seen this play out not only in my own audience but in the audience of countless YouTubers that shift between games.

A very early Genshin Impact Video by Demone Kim.

A prime example of this playing out is something I have seen with the YouTuber Demone Kim. I originally started following his content when I was super into Genshin Impact and then as I lost interest in that game I stopped clicking through to his videos quite so much. I know when he too fell always from the game he got a good deal of backlash from the Genshin community for abandoning the game that made him popular. When he shifted to New World and I eventually caught back up with his content, it was a regular occurrence during his live streams of someone popping in to berate him for not playing Genshin. Then again when he shifted from New World to V Rising… the same happened but this time with New World fans. The more tightly you associate with a specific game the harder it is for you to eventually pivot and move away from it.

I went through my own version of this when I stopped playing World of Warcraft for the first time and transitioned in a big way to Rift. I know my Twitter account lost what felt like half of my followers when I started talking about how great of a game Rift was. At this point, I am some thirteen years into this journey and have come to the realization that if someone is still reading my content, it means that they are here for me. If they wanted to jump away I have given them countless reasons over the years to stop reading. I realize that I will never reach the level of saturation that a devoted blog might get, but I also know that my content will effectively remain evergreen for those who are interested in it. So essentially the choice between being a specialist and being a generalist is that you are either pinning your fate to the success of a specific game or franchise, or you are taking a chance on folks sticking around for you the person behind the screen tickitytacking away at the keyboard.

Gracie snoozing on my wife’s lap

There is also the distinct possibility that folks stick around here for the eventual adorable animal photos as well. So with that, I welcome you all to Blaugust. As always if you want more information about the event then check out the announcement post or the media kit page that has all of the relevant links. I am trying to keep my blog roll updated with all of the folks running in the event but given that there were four signups while I slept, I am certain to be lagging behind. There is still plenty of time to join in this nonsense and I look forward to seeing the overwhelming flurry of posting. Thanks to everyone who shows up and makes this event interesting each year. You, fine folks, are Blaugust and I am merely the person who lights the fuse each year.

Introducing Blaugust 2022

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Good Morning Friends! It is that time again for another Blaugust, or at least it will be very soon. Several years ago I started challenging my blogging friends to post something new each day during the month of August. Over the years this concept has morphed and changed as needed but remained as a focus of trying to stir up bloggers. Blogging has been called a dying art many many times in the press, but there are many of us who keep doing it and have been doing it for over a decade. The hope is with each Blaugust that we might spur some lax bloggers back into action and also spread the art form to a new generation. There is something deeply therapeutic about scribbling down a bunch of words and sending them out into the world for others to read.

Why We Do Blaugust

The “why” of Blaugust is relatively straightforward. The blogging community is nowhere near as large as it once was. Many of us have aged out of blogging with real-world responsibilities and others have just moved on to other time-consuming hobbies. Blaugust gives us a chance to infuse the community with a fresh lease on life as we court new bloggers to join the fray. Those of us who have been carrying the torch of blogging for decades now can sometimes lose hope as our blogroll loses a few voices each year. I personally find getting out and mingling with other bloggers to be a deeply beneficial thing when it comes to my own creative processes. We’ve also branched out to support others who do serialized content in any format, the focus being on regularly engaging with the creative process. The bustling Discord Community has helped to keep the energy up the other eleven months of the year.

The Base Game

This year we are shifting things up a little bit to make it more clear what is required and what is purely optional content. Blaugust at its heart has always been about celebrating the creation of content on a regular schedule. The original challenge was to post 31 times during the month of August which is 31 days long. This can be posting every day or doubling up on some days to make the schedule a bit easier. However, we also want to award anyone who starts down this path, because deciding to blog in the first place is a victory in itself. As such we give out awards based on the number of posts that you manage to knock out during the month of August.

  • Newbie Blogger Award – You did it! You joined Blaugust for the very first time and we are extremely happy to welcome you into this raucous community. As a result, we are going to recognize your efforts just for signing up.
  • Bronze Award – You made at least 5 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Silver Award – You made at least 15 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Gold Award – You made at least 25 posts during the month of August 2022.
  • Rainbow Diamond Award – You beat the challenge and posted 31 times or more during the month of August 2022.

The Expansion

Something new that we are introducing this year is the concept of Blaugchievements. Essentially anything from this point forward should be considered optional and will be considered to also be on the “honor system”. There have always been a number of assorted trappings associated with Blaugust like a schedule with specific weeks called out for various purposes. Additionally, some years back we made a pretty ill-fated attempt at doing a shared topic web ring. These concepts are moving forward but being packaged up as extra achievements for those who wish to go through the additional effort.

Each individual Blaugchievement has its own associated achievement “toast” patterned loosely after those from Xbox Live back in the day. By reading this blog post you have already heard the very first one. You can view the extended list of Blaugchievements where I explain each of them in detail, but here is a short version of the list.

  • Reading the Manual – Read the introductory blog post with the rules of the event.
  • Joining the Cause – Sign-Up for Blaugust.
  • Recruit a Friend – Convince another blogger to participate in Blaugust.
  • Spreading the Madness – Promote Blaugust on your blog or through your social media of choice.
  • Friend of Wumpus – Join the Blaugust Discord.
  • Sharing is Caring – Post your content in the “Share Your Content” Channel.
  • Forum of Friends – Take part in a discussion in the “Post Discussion” Channel.
  • The Pet Tax – Post a picture of an animal friend on the “Stuff and Things” Channel.
  • Friend Like Me – Answer a question posted on the Blagust Discord or help out a new blogger.
  • Shared Thoughts – Comment on a blog post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Getting Inspired – Write a blog post inspired by a post from another Blaugust participant.
  • Pickup Group – Play a game or take part in an activity with one or more Blaugust participants.
  • Hot Topics – Write a blog post based on the Blaugust Prompt List.
  • Welcome Wagon – Write a blog post based on the first week’s theme of Welcoming Folks to Blaugust.
  • Introduce Yourself – Write a blog post based on the second week’s theme of Introducing Yourself.
  • Creative Appreciation – Write a blog post based on the third week’s theme Appreciating the works of some Creative or Company.
  • Staying Motivated – Write a blog post based on the fourth week’s theme of how you have managed to Stay Motivated.
  • Lessons Learned – Write a blog post based on the fifth week’s theme explaining some of the Lessons you have Learned through Blaugust.
  • Going Platinum – Complete All of the Blaugchievements for Blaugust 2022.

The Schedule

As is often the case with Blaugust, we have a series of “themed” weeks. This is a purely optional feature and designed to help give folks some scaffolding the shape their ideas, and not something strict. August has five weeks and as such we have five different themes.

  • Welcome to Blaugust Week (August 1st – August 6th) – The idea behind this week is to give a specific time to be actively talking about Blaugust and welcoming new members to the fold. This could also count as promoting Blaugust for the “Spreading the Madness” achievement. The hope is that drumming up some heavy activity of talking about the event might allow us to pick up a few more stragglers.
  • Introduce Yourself Week (August 7th – August 13th) – The idea behind this week is to have some structured time around getting to know the other bloggers. I realize that those of us who are veteran bloggers might have already written half a dozen introduction posts by now, but it is a great time to share anything interesting you might have in your arsenal.
  • Creative Appreciation Week (August 14th – August 20th) – Developer Appreciation Week or the D.A.W. was an event that took place in the blogging community independent from Blaugust but eventually died out. The more modern idea is to show appreciation for the things and creators that we love. This could be authors, musicians, developers, artists, or even other bloggers, with the focus being on sharing something that we love so that maybe others might appreciate it as well.
  • Staying Motivated Week (August 21st – August 27th) – As we get towards the end of the event, the activity can often trail off a bit. The goal of this week is to share some of your own tips surrounding how you keep motivated and stay focused on creating content. If you are new to the event, you might share some of the things that have helped you stay engaged during Blaugust.
  • Lessons Learned Week (August 28th – August 31st) – This week is a reminder that the goal of Blaugust is to refresh the content creators out there for the coming year, and not to burn them out in the process. Some folks are going to cross the finish line and immediately go dormant and others will want to process their thoughts about the proceedings. This space is reserved as a bit of a cooldown lap so that you can share your own experiences.

The Prompts

As hinted at earlier in this post, in 2020 we tried something a little different and created this whole “promptapalooza” event since we had already done the traditional Blaugust style event as Blapril that year. It was honestly a bit of a failure. I am not sure what it looked like from the outside, but trying to keep that event running was sheer chaos as no one seemed to grok the concept. The good thing that came out of it however is that we have a pretty nice list of prompts for those who might need help trying to come up with something to write about during this month. Again this is a purely optional thing but there is a Blaugchievement associated with it.

Mentorship

One of the benefits of having done this at least once in this same style… is that we have existing infrastructure! We already have a batch of mentors ready to help the process, but if you feel like you would be best served in that role we are always open to more. Ultimately mentors should have at least two years of blogging experience under their belt in order to gauge the ebbs and flow of content creation in front of a live studio audience. We aren’t expecting perfection, just a willingness to share the lessons you have learned along the way with fledgling participants. If this sounds like you, please reach out to me on Discord and we can talk about your desire to become a Mentor.

The Details

That my friends are the details for Blaugust 2022. There have been a few tweaks here or there, but largely it should function in a similar fashion. As is always the case I close out the yearly information post with a quick bullet point rundown of the information.

  • The Sign-Up Form for Blaugust 2022 can be found here. Since logging in with a Google account has been a source of consternation for some, I have removed that functionality. If you still cannot for whatever reason sign-up but want to participate please let me know. Only those that I am tracking will be assigned awards.
  • The invite link to the Blaugust Discord can be found here. Participation in Discord is entirely optional but also a great way to bounce ideas off the existing community.
  • If you feel inclined to do so please use the hashtag #Blaugust2022 for tracking purposes and to make your content easier to find for those watching the proceedings.
    • We also highly suggest that you utilize the Share Your Content” channel in the official Discord.
  • Mingle with the participants of Blaugust 2022. Get out and see the blogs, read the posts, and comment frequently! These folks represent a social structure that you can lean on for advice in the coming years. I deeply value the ties I have made with other bloggers and started this process as an attempt to cement those and build new ones.
  • If you are so inclined there is a “Gaming Together” channel on Discord for those impromptu grouping activities. I believe there was even some discussion of doing a one-shot D&D adventure this year.
  • If you find yourself getting stuck at any point feel free to rely on the weekly schedule or the prompt list for inspiration or you can hop on Discord and talk through your issues.
  • You can also check out the new Blaugchievements list for anything that might spark your creativity and check one of those off.
  • Welcome to Blaugust 2022. As always if you have any questions please feel free to ask. My door is always open but I might be slow to respond because I have a bad habit of idling on pretty much all the social platforms at once.
  • If you want an archive of all of the various logos and such from this year or past years of Blagust, please check out the Blaugust Media Kit page.

A Blaugust Solicitation

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Hey Folks! It is almost Blaugust time. No this is not the new logo but it was the only one I could grab on the fly from my archives that did not have an implicit year associated with it. The new logo is still a work in progress, as is most of the stuff that would go into the big rules and sign-up posts. However, I thought I would do things a little differently this year. I more or less cobbled together Blaugust each year as a “thing I do” that the community also does with me, but this time around I am asking for some feedback.

What Do You Want From Blaugust?

It is a simple enough question. What are you expecting from the Blaugust experience, and what sorts of things do you hope to participate in? Each year I follow a pretty similar script, and each year I have folks who are confused by the rules or expect them to be way more strict than they actually are. I have some ideas on how to resolve that confusion or attempt to resolve it. However, I thought I would start this whole pre-Blaugust discussion out by just asking what you as a participant are expecting to get from the experience.

What Worked Well in Past Blaugusts?

If you have participated in Blaugust before, or merely lurked… what seemed to work well? What aspects of it did you enjoy? What aspects of the proceedings did you want to see more of? I get that this is a bit weird as far as blog posts go, but essentially I am soliciting feedback before I lock this year’s rules in stone.

What Did Not Work Well?

Now we have the opposite side of that coin. What did not work well, and what do you feel could have been improved upon? I can’t guarantee that your feedback is going to change the course of the past year’s proceedings, but I am curious what aspects did not go as well as they could have. Essentially I want to know what did not land as well as it could have, so that maybe with some tweaking I can prevent that from happening again. Blaugust is very much a free-form experience, and I don’t think I will be playing more of a camp director role going forward, but if there are things that we can change to make things work more smoothly in this self-directed manner then I am all about that.

As it stands right now I do not expect to be posting my “launch” topic until at least next week, but I am in the process of firming up material for the coming run of Blaugust. You can of course post your feedback in the comment section below. Also, I am pretty widely reachable through various direct message platforms if what you want to say is in a more sensitive manner. Lastly, if you crave more real-time interaction for this discussion and feedback from other voices there is always the Post Discussion channel in the Blaugust Discord. This is the first time I have really asked for feedback during the entire process of running Blaugust so we will see how this goes.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and also to the upcoming Blaugust 2022.