BitterSweetLife

And now for something frivolous.

Ever since I tagged this blog with the "indie blog" handle, I've eagerly monitored every corner and community on the internet, waiting to see how long it would take before my catch phrase exploded and become the new thang.

Incredibly, "indie blog" has only been put in play half a dozen times outside BitterSweetLife--and four of those were atrocious misspellings. (Indieblogheaven--a pretty good blog focusing on indie bands, is indicative of the only way the phrase appears--tracking indie music rather than exploring exciting new analogies...)

Where are the other indie blogs? Apparently other people are more afraid of phrase-plagiarism than I am.

Of course, the alternative is that people simply haven't known what an "indie blog" is. I can see you now--hovering over your keyboards, looking for that perfect phrase to describe what it is you do online. You pour creativity and energy into various topics, often connected only by the most laborious (but interesting!) logic, and then about three people read it. Four if your mom is online that day. One of them posts a comment that says, "interesting post." Reading the comment, you scream and drink some more coffee. Is there a phrase to describe this weird, cyclic thing you're doing?

Possibly. Consider...

Traits of the Indie Blog (According to BitterSweetLife)

1. Minimal overall influence. That's to say, you're not one of the net's heavy hitters. Your influence is limited to one geographical region or slice of society, i.e., those people who are "cool enough" to read it.
2. Negligible financial impact. In other words, you are not paying your rent thanks to your blog. You aren't even buying groceries thanks to your blog. In all likelihood, your blog is buying you the occasional sleepless night, and that's it. You do it for the love.
3. Fiercely unique. Your blog is dedicated to pursuits that most people view as peripheral to "serious" life. A few examples would be art, minor league hockey, photography, creative writing, rock climbing, theology that doesn't read like a musty encyclopedia entry, and God.
4. Illogically dedicated. Seriously, you continue to write all these posts, month after month, for free? Don't you realize that hardly anyone reads them? Haven't you considered that you could invest your sweat and cogitation with higher dividends elsewhere? Yeah, yeah, yeah--and I'm not stopping. I need to be heard!
   
5. Unapologetically eclectic. Your blog defies pigeon-holing. People say, "He writes about... He writes about...hmm," and you smile. That's because you like being a hybrid. You mix and match--art and spelunking, theology and basketball, philosophy and movies, etc.--because life is like that.
6. Typically ignored. Your blog is not consistently (if ever) linked by any of the blogosphere's celebrities, those who provoke dozens of comments, are read by thousands of people, and could send waves of traffic to your blog if they deigned to notice your existence. But that's all right, it's the price of being indie.

• Do three of these features apply to your blog? Sorry, you're still in the wanna-be indie stage. No points for being merely poor, uninfluential and ignored! But keep working at it.
• If you can claim any four of these traits, your blog is marginally indie. Things are beginning to look up, so pour yourself another cup of coffee.
  
• Got five? You are in the middle of the indie blog mix. People look at your blog and wonder, "When did she become so hip?"
  
• Nail all six? You author a marketable indie blog!--and while this fact will probably never make you rich, you should wear the badge with pride and mention your status from time to time. In fact, I suggest you start now.