The Only Blog-Writing Guide You Need

Do yourself a favor: stop reading Copyblogger.  If you really want to learn how to blog, read Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs; it’s the only writing guide you’ll ever need, because it has nothing to do with writing and everything to do with making ultra-personal, compulsively readable arguments about anything.

Why This Book Matters

Despite being published in 2003, Puffs reads like a hyper-modern guidebook for our currently self-obsessive culture.  Yes, it preceded the explosion of MySpace, YouTube and Twitter, but the absence of web-related case studies in Puffs* actually reinforces my point:

In 2003, Chuck Klosterman created the blueprint for writing the kind of blog you’d kill to be known for today, and all before anybody knew what a blog was.

But there’s a problem: intent.

Chuck Klosterman is a career hybrid of journalist, essayist and memoirist.  He’s a best-selling author and pop culture deconstructionist.

You write about SEO.

So where’s the overlap?  Easy: it’s all in the way you make your argument.

Listen to Me, and I’ll Say Something That You’ll Think Is Amazing

Simply put, Chuck Klosterman may be the best contextualizer of pop culture writing today.

His explanations of how and why our culture shapes our reality is the kind of writing that makes you think, “Of course; that’s so obvious!” AND “I never would have thought of that!” at the same time.

This makes Chuck Klosterman the kind of expert you want to be: a highly-opinionated amateur whose articulate assertions about “the way things are” have elevated him to cult-like status in the minds of people who believe Chuck Klosterman is “just like me.”

How does he do it?  By employing the same literary devices that have been adopted by the very bloggers you quote endlessly:

• Start with an authoritative argument that seeks to define something anew.
• Cite a vast array of facts that imply your encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.
• Use indefensible phrases like “this is perhaps the most ___ aspect of ___”
• Seemingly concede others may be right… “but.”  Then, disembowel their POV.
• Embed your subjective experience into your otherwise objective dissertation.
• Conclude your argument on an ambiguous note that betrays the entire venture as your own personal attempt to better understand your own consciousness, rather than the generalized education the reader had initially presumed it was meant to be.

In the end, you’ll have said something that may or may not mean anything to anyone but you, but you’ll have provided your audience with ample opportunity to draw their own conclusions.

What Billy Joel’s Worst-Selling Albums Can Teach You About Social Media

You may not think pop culture and social media necessarily overlap, but here’s the kicker: the unifying themes among the 18 essays published in Puffs are the exact same themes that fuel our social media-driven culture.

For example, Klosterman covers such diverse territory as:

• How breakfast cereal mascots train kids to become hipsters.
• Why pornorgaphy made the Internet acceptable, and vice versa.
• How The Empire Strikes Back created Generation X.
• Why the otherwise forgettable tween “comedy” Saved by the Bell succeeds as a litmus test for your own understanding of how “the real world” works.
• What it means to have known a serial killer — and what that says about fluidity of our individual morality.

The pattern?  Like social media, pop culture creates your own reality.

When Klosterman explains how Billy Joel has written some of the most universally-relatable pop songs ever, but we rarely notice how relevant Billy Joel actually is because he consciously rejects any attempts to “brand” himself, you realize that same lesson applies to your brand — or lack thereof.

And when Klosterman declares that MTV’s “The Real World” ceased to document “reality” after its first season and has been creating reality ever since, it blows your mind a little.  Then you realize his central thesis — that a generation has grown up realizing that the only way they’ll ever get to be on a “reality show” is by being a “reality show type” — is undeniably true, and you can’t help but take his side.

Debunking the Deconstructionist

Make no mistake: you could easily debunk every assertion Klosterman makes.  But this in no way devalues his skills as a writer; if anything, it makes him even more readable, because you find yourself forming your own arguments as you’re reading his.

For example, he claims best-selling “Wal-Mart country” artists like Toby Keith  and Trisha Yearwood deserve their success because they document the human condition more simply — and, therefore, more relatably for the masses — than Bob Dylan or Liz Phair.

Obviously, the flip side of that argument (which Klosterman glosses over) involves cultural isolationism, geographic limitations and flaws in our educational and media distribution systems.  But Klosterman doesn’t explore that side of the big picture.

Why not?

Probably due to one huge stumbling block created by his preferred format: length.  If he writes too much, he knows his essays will become too dense for us to read in a single sitting.  And shouldn’t pop culture analysis be as digestible as pop culture itself?

Besides, there’s also the matter of being prolific.  Every spoke on the argument wheel is an opportunity for another article, another essay…

… or, if you prefer, another blog post.

* NOTE: I’ve only read the original 2003 hardcover printing of Puffs; the recent reprint evidently contains new essays, which may be more web-centric.  Klosterman has also written in Esquire, The Believer and beyond; his latest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur, is now at the top of my to-read list.

Dig this blog? Subscribe and you’ll never miss a witty insight again.

Tags: America, art, audience, Blogging, books, branding, expert, inspiration, language, perception, pop culture, Social Media, Sociology, tv, writing