We need more egos

Wed 26 Aug 2026

Back in April I joined my first Homebrew Website Club meeting and since then I’ve made a habit of reading the blogs from everyone there that day. The first post I read this Wednesday is from Thomas Vander Wal at his blog Off the Top.

On this very hot summer day (108°F / 42°C) I’m reminded of blogs that used to have names, like columns or talk shows. I think of old ones like Jorn Barger’s Robot Wisdom, Dave Winer’s Scripting News and John Gruber’s Daring Fireball. Then I think of newer blogs I read like The Jolly Teapot from Nicolas Magand and The Beauty of Nature from Franz Graf.

A blog with a name gravitates around a theme. The posts are its pulse, reminding the reader of the core idea that made it be in the first place.

“Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.”

W.H. Auden, A Certain World (1970)

Personal sites take us through the discovery of ideas and events in a person’s life, more journal or diary than talk show. A personal site is closer to the reader, a viewport-sized window into the writer’s mind.

In 2001, RuPaul wrote at his weblog www.rupaul.com:

weblog = sweet narcissism

i’m off to do my nightclub act in indianapolis. i guess i’ll hire a local donkey when i get there (that’s a joke, dan matthews). i gotta get a laptop for when i’m on the road, whoring myself. which one should i get ? should i wait till after christmas ? jonno will know. meanwhile, here is a list of my favorite movies this year.

I love that remark from RuPaul. That first line is a throwaway comment followed by a mention of his nightclub act in Indianapolis in a post about his favorite movies of the year! To call a weblog sweet narcissism is, even in 2001, an acknowledgement and celebration of the breakaway act of sharing your writing with the world.

Over half a century before RuPaul, George Orwell said the same thing but called it egoism.

Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They are:

(i) Sheer egoism

(ii) Aesthetic enthusiasm

(iii) Historical impulse

(iv) Political purpose

George Orwell, Why I Write (1946)

We need more writers.