Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The New York Times had a front page article on Sunday about the "high stress" life of bloggers, raising the harrowing prospect of bloggers writing "till they drop" and developing heart attacks from the stress. As a guy who makes a living as a blogger, let me be the first to say the obvious: shut up. Like me, you get paid to write. You get paid to do what you almost certainly did for free before. Everyone should be as lucky as we are.
They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece -- not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
Are you kidding me?
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Who the heck are these people? Great physical and emotional stress? To write your opinion about things and talk about subjects you're passionate about? That's stressful? Go join the Marines and you'll find out what stress is. This job isn't stressful, it's borderline idyllic.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Definitive proof of causation if ever I saw it. Out of millions of bloggers, 3 of them have had heart attacks. OMG! Friends don't let friends blog, it's too dangerous. I'm cynical about a lot of things, bu I can't be cynical about my job. I get paid to write about subjects I feel passionately about. I know how incredibly lucky I am. If you ever hear me whining about how stressful it is, kick my ass.
Comments
Oh don't act so brave - we can only imagine how you must suffer, you poor, overworked, stressed-out dear. May you survive your inevitable heart attack.
Posted by: uncle noel | April 8, 2008 9:44 AM
Interesting. All the bloggers who died were tech bloggers. Both Shaw and Orchant often wrote about VoIP and Malik wrote about telecoms. Looks like being a threat to phone companies is what's hazardous to your health, rather than blogging in general.
My father always told me never to mess with Ma Bell. (I'm dating myself, I know.) I never really understood why before.
Posted by: Abby Normal | April 8, 2008 9:49 AM
After hearing this I think Gribbit should blog more.
Posted by: mgordon | April 8, 2008 10:05 AM
You get paid to do this? Damn......
Posted by: Brandon | April 8, 2008 10:12 AM
If anyone is that unhappy at anything they do then quit and change what you do for a living. Take the whining to someone who cares.
Posted by: AFSGTSAM | April 8, 2008 10:31 AM
Could the coronaries have anything to do with a sedentary lifestyle? Let's see...bloggers (sitting at home), tech bloggers (more sitting).
I'd like to see the statistics on bloggers who focus on triathlons, sports, etc. I'm sure they're all dropping dead of heart attacks, too....
(And yes, I'd say "high stress" is not having a job, not having one which fits around your life and schedule!)
Posted by: ck | April 8, 2008 10:31 AM
Well... okay... but remember that you asked for it!
Posted by: valhar2000 | April 8, 2008 12:14 PM
"Many are paid by the piece..."
I don't know how newspaper reporters are paid, but don't magazines pay per piece, too? Idiot. This is nothing but slamming a new technology that threatens to make parts of the establishment, like Mr. Richtel, obsolete.
Posted by: bullet | April 8, 2008 12:42 PM
It is always sad to hear about these things. To an extent, blogging can be tedious some times but not to the point where it puts your health at risk. We all die someday.
Posted by: NewSunSEO | April 8, 2008 12:49 PM
Posted by: Alex, FCD | April 8, 2008 1:27 PM
I saw this article in the Toledo Blade on Sunday, and literally groaned out loud. I think it's just another hack journalist who thought he found a bandwagon to jump onto, and a whole bunch of editors who had some space to fill up.
Based on his blog entries, Ed finds time away from his keyboard to (a) give speeches, (b) play poker, and (c) watch NCAA basketball so I'm assuming he also can find time to (d) take some long walks to destress and boost his cardiovascular system. I'll assume his schedule isn't fundamentally different than most bloggers. So, yes, this kind of whining is pathetic, and Ed is all the more respectable for saying so.
Posted by: James Hanley | April 8, 2008 3:32 PM
James-
Actually, it's worse than all of that. I generally get up at the crack of noon. I spend two nights a week playing poker. I make a grueling 12 foot walk to work every day, usually in sweatpants and bullwinkle slippers. And I get paid to write my opinion on issues I feel passionately about. Stressful? It's hard to imagine a job with less stress. I am one lucky sonofabitch and I'm not gonna pretend otherwise. When I started blogging 4 1/2 years ago, I never imagined it would turn into this. You'll hear no whining from me about it.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 8, 2008 3:55 PM
Seriously. Getting PAID to blog? 10$ a pop? Such a thing would not merely reduce my stress drastically, it would quite possibly save my life from the stress that not having money or doing anything I love for a living causes.
Posted by: Bad | April 8, 2008 4:59 PM
I'm so relieved you think being a blogger is idyllic. I've been secretly afraid that pouring over what must seem like a constant stream of mindnumbing idiocy, hostility, fascism, arrogance, confusion, pettiness, spin, ignorance, and bigotry would someday cause you to crack.
And that's just from us folks in the comments.
Posted by: Sastra | April 8, 2008 5:03 PM
1. There are A LOT of bloggers out there.
2. A certain percentage of the population has poor health.
3. There will be some bloggers out there with poor health.
Posted by: tehghey | April 8, 2008 7:26 PM
I've been through three divorces since I started blogging. I once lost a finger factchecking, and was kidnapped by a Colombian drug cartel for linking to a New York Times piece. For three days I rotted in a dank prison, with nothing but coffee grounds for food and my Blackberry for company. Don't tell me blogging is easy. It's cost me nearly everything.
In fact, just sitting down to type this comment in defense of my God-given vocation is making my blood pressure spike. Blogging is... 21st century... New Media... BoingBoing... steampunk... blogosphere... technologism... blogging... dangerous... Can't quite... reach... defib... rillator... Where's the Wikipedia... page... ?...
Posted by: Jim Anderson | April 8, 2008 8:01 PM
The big fallacy here is noticing that certain events of (negative) interest occurred in a certain group and concluding that they were caused by group membership without bothering to see how common they are in non-members. It's like those "how to tell if you're kid's on drugs" checklists that describe traits that are common in teenagers who use drugs, and equally common in teenagers who don't.
The most spectacular example of this fallacy, falling into the "the stupid, it undergoes nuclear fusion" category, was the therapist who specialized in treating victims of child sexual abuse, noticed that teenage male patients had frequent erections, and on that basis asserted that if a boy gets erections before turning 18, he's almost certainly been sexually abused. Needless to say, that therapist had never had an erection, thanks to a lack of the necessary "equipment."
Posted by: ebohlman | April 9, 2008 9:41 AM
Bullwinkle slippers?
Uhhhh, ok.
Posted by: BobbyEarle | April 9, 2008 12:15 PM
Okay, it's a big load of hooey. It's still okay if we appreciate you anyway, no?
Posted by: twincats | April 9, 2008 3:52 PM