In 2009 Tiny r(E)volution was born. It started out as just a free WordPress.com blog with the purest of intentions. It would be an online journal where my wife and I could document our “ahead of the trend” tiny house build. I had been keeping some sort of blog since 2004 when I literally had to hard code the text and use an FTP to upload the images. I really did love every second of those days though. I posted our first post in August 2010 (yes, it took that long to even touch our site) out of more frustration than anything. For months we had been trying to research these tiny house on trailer things with virtually no success. Save the Tiny House Blog and a now-relic of a site, Evan & Gabby, there was almost nothing to help out other potential tiny housers. With a background in marketing, advertising, and writing, I took to the keyboard with a vengeance, committed to offering help to others through our blog.
According to a recent poll, 94% of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others. (source) This statistic illustrates the importance of creating blog content that is actually useful. Things haven’t changed all that much it seems. Or have they?
Evan & Gabby began blogging about their tiny house, choosing to focus on the components of the build. They laid out system requirements, materials they were interested in, process, procedures, and timelines. It was 85% formal and 15% informal. The informal part allowed their readers to get a sense of who they were day in and day out. A blog I read recently (now seven years later) was so very different. It was 10% formal, 55% informal, 30% nonsense, and 5% political ranting. It seems that we have entered a time of over-sharing where everyone feels as if an unspoken requirement of building a tiny house is to host a blog, have an Instagram feed, create a Facebook page, draw up Pinterest boards, and otherwise give out TMI. As I read more and more blogs these days I usually stop after a few sentences and ask, “How is this enhancing my life? How is it helping me understand this person and their build? What am I learning? Will I ever get this 8 minutes of my life back?” All too often the answers lead me to click the X and go back to reading about Kim K or flat tax systems. There just doesn’t seem to be any value.
Please don’t misunderstand this post. It is not a rant. Rather it is a true “call to arms” as to why so many feel they should create a blog when there are already 1,028,942 blogs out there asking the same question about which IKEA chair is better than the other for a tiny house. And I am not just talking the talk. In late 2014 and all of 2015 Tiny r(E)volution went silent. We felt as if we had nothing else to say, no help left to offer, and, to some extent, that we just weren’t relevant any longer to the modern tiny house movement. So we wrote a quick explanation, and went silent. I fully believe that one day we will do it again and one day we will even retire from it altogether.
I think we all just have to be real with ourselves and ask why we keep a blog. Is it to feel important or to feel like a cause célèbre, if even for a moment? Or is it because we realize that our words are far louder than our actions and we have more fun talking about it than doing it? Whatever the case, I sometimes feel like the noise of TMI blogs far outweigh the valuable information that so many of us crave. That is the point of this blog post. I am not trying to get down on those that want to share and want to be relevant. I am just challenging us all to rise above and to be more than just hack auto-biographers. Let’s create content that truly helps each other. Let’s dig deep into our own stories and pull out some truths that can shape a stronger and more educated community.
If you have a blog and you want to meet me on this challenge I offer these first question examples:
- By writing about this product am I saying that I did the proper research and I am willing to put it in my own house first?
- Why do I think propane heaters are better than wood burning? Did I confess prior to my statement that I am scared of flames and just don’t feel comfortable with a fire in my house and therefore didn’t properly vet the two against each other?
- Will anyone find real value in my words or am I writing them just to put in my two cents?
- The title of my blog involves the phrase tiny house. Does this post have anything to do with tiny houses?
By Andrew M. Odom for the [Tiny House Blog]
Hi Andrew, it is rather ironic that you are literally posting a blog about exactly the kinds of posts you are hoping your blog post will sway people away from. You are ranting about how people shouldn’t rant or put irrelevant (to you) information out there for others to read. While I agree that having blogs, etc that provide information for people looking for information are extremely helpful (especially for us DIYers that really need all the information we can get), that is not the purpose for everyone that blogs. Some have a blog so their family and friends can follow along, some have one because they want a way to document their own journey, others do it to see what might come from blogging in general. Sadly, I’ll be unsubscribing from your blog…I fully support everyone creating a blog in a way that makes the most sense for them, but doing so and criticizing others for doing the same seems pretty hypocritical and unnecessary.
Erika
It is ironic. I agree. However, not once in my post did I say that blogs couldn’t be used for a host of things. My reference was to bloggers that go to some extra effort to “market” themselves. They create a Facebook page. They pen a status update linking to their latest blog post. They tweet about their blog, etc. I keep a written journal and when I was living on the road I had a private blog for my family members a friends about life on the road. Yet it was password protected and offered no real “meat and potatoes” for anyone. It was just a convenient way to keep folks up to date.
I ask that you not unsubscribe from Tiny House Blog. I am but a guest here. If you are a subscriber to Tiny r(E)volution then please, cast your vote by unsubscribing. I can appreciate and respect that. I do want to point out though that there was absolutely no blatant criticism in my post and it even directed itself at bloggers for the sake of adding to the tiny house virtual library. I didn’t once reference personal bloggers, online journal keepers, etc.
I have had my time wasted by the very type of bloggers / individuals your post describes. (Perhaps this is why I understand your post, and in no way does it come off offensively.) I can only hope that any of them run across this postings recommendations with its constructive criticism, taking heed. These individuals / their posts I’m certain, do have potential… but without some introspection and personal development -potential readers / followers will be unable to glean any substantial or purposeful benefit. There will always be followers of the narcissistic, and if that makes for their contentment so be it. But for those who really are unassuming, I believe they can learn off of your thoughtful recommendations. Nice post.
Thank you so much for understanding Lynne. I was very much hoping it would be seen as constructive criticism and not just combative chatter with an air of hypocrisy. I appreciate your response.
Andrew,
You’re on a role. I sense your frustration from this article and your previous crowd fund diatribe. If our paths ever crossed in the dirty south, we’d probably enjoy a beer together, agree on a great many things, and respect that our specific circumstances and life experiences prevent us from seeing eye to eye on some others.
I guess I’m a digital nomad like you, going on 11 years now. We left Upstate NY, simplified, and have kept it small. It’s allowed for some great experiences. We lived small (400-500 sq ft) in Mexico for 9 years, in beach towns, big cities, and mountain pueblos. We panicked when we felt our parents had reached the point that they needed our help and returned to the USA. We set up shop in southern Arizona in a 1400 sq ft town home (because it just made so much financial sense every way I ran the numbers to preserve and build equity) so that we’d be ready. Two years into this phase, and the folks seem okay (returned/stayed in NY) and our siblings have joined us in arranging affairs so that our folks future needs are met. So guess what, friends are minding the home in Arizona and we’re back in Mexico for the month of September, Alamos, Sonora, Mexico to be exact. Today, I put an offer on a modest 800 sq meter (about 1/5 of an acre) property with a crude 40 sq meter “tiny house of sorts” present. Paying cash. I’ve been interested in the tiny house movement, supported it with donations and purchases and have gone as far as designing a 32′ THOW. But in the end, at this moment, I want to be rooted in the soil south of the border. So I’ve got plans for lots of little casitas built using locally sourced materials and methods in this little pueblo magico. Maybe I should blog it?
So it took me a while, but eventually I got around to a wee bit of tiny house relevance. In the meantime, I shared something I haven’t shared with the community previously, a tiny little piece of my last 11 trips around the sun. Egotistical? Perhaps. Therapeutic for me? I think so. Man, this blogging thing is complex. I did it without my own blog. I just hijacked the comments section of one of your articles. I don’t know if I’ve improved or diminished the experience for your readers. Who knows?
So the Tiny House Community is growing. Lots of competing voices wanting to be heard. Some for self fulfillment and others for monetization. Additional self promotion through other social media venues is a necessity if someone is striving to create a brand (for either of the motives I mentioned above).
So yeah, it gets a bit old hearing about someone tooling across the USA in an F250 pulling 12,000lbs to demonstrate that Tiny Houses can save the world and are cheaper/better/more environmentally responsible than my modest 36 year old 2 bedroom home and 9 year old Toyota Prius. If I see one more foto of the Morrison’s taking selfies or ‘jumping’ with friends, I swear I’m going to kick Ryan Mitchell in the family jewels (cuz I think I could outrun Ryan afterwards). If I hear one more Tiny House hipster rockstar proclaim they repeatedly touched themselves after viewing Small is Beautiful, I may just burn down Jay Schaffer’s 89 sq ft tiny house. So there’s allot of white noise as everyone struggles to keep their own story relevant or promote their own means to making ends meet. It’s reaching a saturation point. You and I have observed it for a while and we might just be feeling bogged down by tiny house blogging. We might be underestimating just how many folks are out there that need 10 to 12 different bloggers to validate that Ikea chair purchase.
Cheer up Andrew. I’m re-engaged in my Sierra Madre Occidental dream… and you’ve got a whole mini-homestead to get moving on. Whether or not we decide to share any of it via a blog remains to be seen. 😉
I am too often regarded as a discourager or just plain petty. Truth is, I love the tiny house community and the voice it has created. What I can’t stand though is editorial regurgitation. That is part of why I write in the style I do for THB. I can’t ever again write about what heater is best for a tiny house unless something so compels me and makes me think it can turn the industry upside down.
I don’t begrudge anyone or their voice. But I will offer them a challenge to be the best and most informative source they can. Man, I love your Mexican dream. Sounds awesome. One place we never got when living on the road was Baja and we always wanted to. Life is not over though. Heck, we are only on Tiny r(E)volution v.3.0. HAHAHAH!!!! And I haven’t blogged about it hardly at all. I did make a couple videos because I felt the information would help others in a real way. But we have homesteaded before and wrote all about our experience on the now defunct http://www.anotherkindofdrew.com.
I love that you hijacked my post. Feel free to ANYTIME. I welcome dialogue. Not everyone has to sit in the “daddy chair” at the table. I can totally share.
I won’t ever deny it or pretend I a something I am not. I am a shameless self-promoter; a marketer by trade. I blog as a revenue stream, but I like to think I blog with a purpose. I like to think my blog posts add something to the human experience and, more specifically, the tiny house experience. I run a brand but I don’t ever try to hide that fact. And there has recently become a lot of noise rather than just volume. I prefer volume so that the community continues to grow. Noise will only detract.
Your voice is always welcome here my friend.
I’m in the dreaming/research stage with big dreams of living in a tiny house. I’m 65, a PTSD survivor. I appreciate any and all information I can get. Appreciate your views, as well.
Thank you so much Susan.