When people ask me what I do, I tell them the truth: I’m a freelance writer. If they press it—asking what sort of writing I do—I tell them that I’m mostly a corporate blogger, which is mostly true. I’ll cop to adding the “corporate” part even though a big chunk of my time is spent on my own two decidedly non-corporate personal blogs. I think I add that to make it clear that I’m not just some unwashed social misfit ranting while hunched over a laptop in my basement.

(Because, you know, we don’t even have a basement.)

Plus, I do lots of writing for corporate clients, and there are numerous pretty people who send me money in exchange for my writing, so yes: I’m a freelance writer who specializes in corporate blogging. No shame there, right?

Well, maybe….

So I was reading along, yesterday, and came across a piece over at Employee Evolution by J.T. O’Donnell, titled Help! In Need Of A New Name For Blogging. Take a look at this telling excerpt:

Them: “Well, everyone we asked said they don’t read blogs because they are just silly rantings by people about their personal lives.”

Me: “Are you kidding? But we’re planning to create a blog as part of this internship project.”

Them: “We know, we needed to talk to you about that J.T. – Can we call it something else? Because all our friends said they won’t read a blog and it’s kind of embarrassing to say that’s what we are working on.”

I was shell-shocked. You see, I only stumbled across the power of reading and writing for blogs in the last year. The truth is, it was actually Ryan and Ryan from EmployeeEvolution.com who got me hooked. Thus, while I can see how blogging isn’t fully embraced by the older generations yet (Gen X and above), I never considered that the younger generations might actually be AVOIDING them.

The session with my team turned into an hour-long tutorial on the upsides of reading and contributing to blogs. By the time we were done I was convinced they had ’seen the light’ and would be ready move forward, but instead, they said something to this effect:

“Okay J.T., we see how the blog we’re creating is going to benefit students and recent grads, but that makes us even more certain we’ll have to call it something else. Trust us.”

I’ve been waiting my entire life to have a little street cred, and now I find out that blogging is actually unhip? Crap.

I have, of course, run into people who—as soon as I say I’m a blogger—develop that little indulgent smirk that I hate, and say something like, “Oh, it’s good to have hobbies,” or whatever. But I had assumed they were the minority, or at the very least assumed that they were mostly my generation and older.

On the other hand, I generally go do a guest lecture at my local university a couple of times a year, and every time I ask a roomful of journalism and other “new media” students how many of them blog, I’m lucky if two or three hands go up. I’d always assumed it to be because they’re too busy with school work.

Could it be that they just think blogs are a waste of time, and/or an embarrassing, amateur pursuit?

My world has officially been rocked. (Thankfully, my revenue has not. Call them what you want, but I’m pretty sure my blaaaaaaawgs are here to stay.)

I’ll be scratching my head on this one for a while. And also keeping an eye on J.T.’s post to see what substitute name for blogs wins the concensus.

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