Catering to the Masses

So when is it a good idea to cater to the masses, and when is it not?

Is it ever a good thing?

Take for example this blog, that I have meant to be a representation of myself.

With this blog, I am committing a massive no-no....

I am writing a light colour on a dark background.  I could choose the write a dark colour on a light background to make people like my blog more.  However, to me that means I need to bend my will again, to camouflage myself, to blend in to contort myself into a box that doesn't fit me to be accepted.

Telling me that I will not have any success as a blogger simply because I will not write dark on a light background is like telling Monet that his technique will never gather crowds as he doesn't paint like other people.  Telling Picasso that his art has no value because his pictures are not an exact representation as the masses see it.

Someday I may decide to change these things, but it will be because as a person, a human, I will finally have stepped out of darkness and into the light.

Depression is a dark place.  It is not a light place.  I am not in a good place in my life right now, I am in a dark place.

My blog represents me.  It shows my darkness.  It shows my beliefs, it represents the person I have not allowed myself to be.  I am speaking my mind here in a way that I have been too much of a wimp to do ever before.

There are plenty of occasions where one almost has no choice to cater to the masses.  Work is one example.  Of course you could also choose to be fired over it, but generally speaking there is much catering to be done.

You could also argue that it's not original to write light on dark background.  It has been done before by many and often.  Actually in school, did they not use white chalk on a blackboard?

Wait, what??????

In school, as early as grade school, children are taught to read and manage it very well, with light coloured writing on a dark surface....

DOS based computer programs also use light writing on a dark background.

Wow!

Maybe those who have such issues with light writing on a dark surface have some subconscious issue with being reminded of grade school.

And no, you are right it's not original.  At all.  I am not original either, not trying to be original, just trying to be ME.  Two very different things.

I have researched successful blogging.  I have taken as much of the advice as I could without starting to feel that awkwardness, that the product was no longer made of me, but made of strangers.

My blog is also an evolving product and I will be (I hope) evolving as well.  The colours will change, the words will change, the labels will change and so will the atmosphere.  Through it all, it will be me, as I am in that moment in time.

I doubt I will ever use a yellow backgroung with red writing or vice versa, that will probably never be me.

Well thanks for reading.