Dear Hipster:

How come you don’t have a personal blog? I thought all hipsters had to have personal blogs, or at least Tumblrs. I might read it, if that’s any consolation to you.

— Bernie

Considering they were the biggest proponents of a burgeoning format, hipsters are justly implicated in the rise to prominence of the blog as art form, medium unto itself, and borderline obligatory undertaking for anyone between the ages of 12 and 60 who wants a credible internet presence. Most bloggers fall into one of two camps. There are the fresh college grads who consider it a kind of living resume, and then there are the frustrated authors who think they’ll be the next Julie Powell if they break the critical threshold of online celebrity.

Too many bloggers I’ve enjoyed reading over the years have shown their true colors, proving to be members of the latter group. As soon as their respective book deals come through, the blog I once loved becomes little more than a hollow front to sell a $29.99 coffee table book. Book tour announcements and links to the author’s online marketplace replace the whimsical content that originally captivated me for untold minutes.

Maybe when they write the definitive biography on me, this will be the anecdote that explains where I draw the line between “things I enjoy for free” and “things for which I will spend my otherwise scrupulously hoarded finances.” To me, keeping a personal blog solely in hopes of attracting attention to one’s unpublished novel about plucky dwarves who live in the sewers beneath Ann Arbor, Michigan and solve crimes with the help of a socially awkward teenager (warning: hilarity and feels ensue!); well, that just reeks of early-2000’s internet naiveté laced with a kind of get-rich-quickism.

I hate to sound bitter of others’ successes, but it burns when they abandon their original audiences at the first whiff of success.