South Suburban Chicago Bloggers

My local paper in the Chicagoland south suburbs, the Daily Southtown, did an article on bloggers in our area. Among those blogs mentioned are one that “features pieces about knitting,” one that “details the cooking exploits of… [a] stay-at-home father of two,” and this other one…:

Hemant Mehta, a 23-year-old Sandburg High School graduate known as the “eBay atheist,” wrote a blog (and a book) about spending a year of Sundays in churches after selling his soul on eBay. The visits ended, but he continues the conversation at friendlyatheist.com.

While Mehta attracted national attention for his quirky stunt, most blogs are mundane ramblings with narrow, boring subjects and tiny audiences.

The bulk of bloggers never expect to attract more than a few hundred viewers.

Truth be told, I’m 24 and I didn’t exactly go to church every Sunday for a year.

But I’m grateful I was written about in opposition to boring, mundane blogs 🙂 And that my name was used in the same phrase as the word “quirky.”

Speaking of blog viewers, the readership on this site keeps growing, too! Thanks to all of you who continue the conversation in the comments, send me private emails, or just read the posts in secrecy. It’s a blast being able to do this.

[tags]atheist, atheism, Daily Southtown, Hemant Mehta, eBay atheist, Carl Sandburg High School[/tags]

kjb

Maybe this is from reading more blogs or using wikipedia, but I feel a lot better about a source of information when I can instantly look at the sources that the author is using. I mean, if you’re going to do a piece about blogging, you could do more in depth research about them.

“…are mundane ramblings with narrow, boring subjects and tiny audiences.”

I’m not sure talking about Atheism is a “…narrow, boring subject….”
…zefrank.com? crooksandliars.com? “tiny audiences” indeed.
graemeh

Just wanted to leave a comment to notify my readership, as I have yet to comment.

Also to note praise towards the push for competence and for the removal of ignorance. Personally I can’t stand stupidity, bigotry or outright Bible/Kuran/etc thumpers, but I live in Toronto, Canada and it isnt much of a problem here. You have my utmost respect for your cause and for being a spokesperson for atheists alike.

kudos, keep the up the good work.
King Aardvark

As another person a stone’s throw from Toronto, I’d like to say congrats on the acknowledgement. More publicity, too. We don’t have as many problems as you would in the States, but even in the Durham region (where I am, about 30 minutes east of Toronto) we still have Secular Ontario having to threaten lawsuits to try to get an opening prayer out of our regional council meetings.