The case for/against a Tumblblog on Japanese jazz

Arguments for starting a Tumblblog on Japanese jazz

• So, so many internet people insist to me that the only way to gain a real audience in This Fragmented Media Lansdscape is to dial into a sub-subspecialty of a subspecialty of a specialty. These aren't just the words of pompous blowhards, either; no less grounded a figure than Merlin Mann often discusses how you'd do best to blog about and thus become the guy for, say, one individual Jawa, or a particular obscure X-Man who died a long time ago. I think Japanese jazz is in that league.
   
• I would learn what, exactly, Tumblr is. I realize that it's a blogging platform of some kind, and that it may or may not be optimized for the posting of videos, images and sounds. That doesn't tell me why it exists, though, and it certainly doesn't tell my why it's (apparently) a success. Despite its disorganized fan base, Japanese jazz is quite well represented in terms of multimedia artifacts coursing through the tubes, all of which I presume could be easily Tumbl'd.
   
• Japanese jazz is Japanese, yet, lacking the shameful associations of more popular Japanese exports like anime, manga, video games, wall scrolls and used schoolgirls' socks, I feel it is somehow "okay" to be enthusiastic about.
   
• Jazz itself is too big and diffuse a subject to get a handle on. One strategy is to latch onto a specific subspecies of jazz, but that way lies obscurantism and crankery; you might wind up spelling it "jass." Better, I imagine, to focus on a certain region rather than a certain style, though jazz played by the Japanese does seem aesthetically distinct from its Western counterpart, and in a thousand ways, though each difference is infinitesimal. (Free musicology PhD thesis question: "To what extent is Japanese jazz a regional instantiation of a style; to what extent is it simply a style?")
   
• I've never been to Japan, unfortunately, but that's a problem I'll rectify. Irrationally averse as always to playing the usual tourist games, slouching around shrines and pachinko parlors and whatnot, I've long planned to organize my first trip there around hops from Japanese jazz club to Japanese jazz club. They've got so many there, most of them in cities by which I'm fascinated, that a map of them provides a handy travel route indeed. (Side note: Haruki Murakami once owned and operated a jazz club. It was called Peter Cat.)
   
• I might make big bucks. (Extremely unlikely, but no less likely to get me those than anything else I do.)

Arguments against starting a Tumblblog on Japanese jazz

• I perhaps don't have the free life bandwidth for it. (But how much would it actually demand? Surely I can cut the cloth to fit.)
   
• The world of Japanese jazz might itself prove too sprawling to comprehend. (But it's a smallish country.)
   
• Do I have room for much more vinyl? (No, but I could just get rid of other stuff.)
   
• I would have to explain, probably with some regularity, why I have a Tumblblog on Japanese jazz. (But I could refer them to this post.)

Comments

[Doug]

Hi Colin,

I've got a popular Tumblr for my daily photos (http://daily.imakephotos.com) and a close friend currently operates the most popular travel-photo-related Tumblog, so I just thought I'd share a couple thoughts. My apologies if you already know any of this.

1: In following the trend of Tumblr popularity-seeking, you'll have to name your Tumblog "fuckyeahjapanesejazz" or "lookatthisfuckingjapanesejazz" (this may make more sense if you use Tumblr frequently, but isn't much of a joke).

2: If you wish to have contributors to lessen your time creating items, it's as easy as checking a box or selecting specific users to be able to post. You can also restrict post types, so those users can only submit photos, or audio, which either goes live or into a queue that you approve. You can also queue or schedule your own posts if you create more than you wish to post for a while.

3: Not many get popular from Tumblr, but many are popular within Tumblr. Roughly 130 new Tumblr users 'follow' my photo Tumblr every day despite it being self-made work and containing zero celebrity scandal news, but my non-Tumblr traffic is minimal.

4: The recommendation system works nicely, allowing users to recommend the Tumblog into a category such as Music, and allows each user to recommend only one blog a week. Once you're in the recommendation directory you're popular "in Tumblr" in no-time.

Tumblr is a fun place to throw ideas around, and items are shared easily. Even if you don't pursue it for long, it's well worth giving a shot.

[Justin Wehr]

Although I would hate to see you dial into becoming the guy on anything, I support your experimentation. I just hope it does not take away from what you do here (and on MOI and other publicly viewable places).

[Phil]

As you note, Japanese jazz is a large field. Certainly larger than what one could blog regarding an individual Jawa. You might find yourself overwhelmed.

If you focus on the contemporary, and by that I mean what's happening right now, the scope of your project would be more manageable, but without context a blog on Japanese jazz could be quite meaningless.

And if you plan on an ethnographic approach, i.e. traveling to Japan to collect data, bring money. Cover charge in Japan is prohibitive.

[thesis writing]

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[Health News]

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