There have been many historians throughout time and we amateur lovers of history are just the newest generation of a long line of people seeking to bring order and understanding to the happenings of humans. It is important to understand why this history writing is so vital for this age, even though that video is in the ascendant and people do not seem willing to engage with text. No matter how much changes, writers have to continue dipping their metaphorical pens in the ink and continue writing because the spreading of knowledge should be our most important goal of everything that we write on the Internet as well as offline writings that are intended mainly for our close colleagues and small groups.
The Age of Video on the Internet began with the rise of YouTube in 2005. It seems that blogging or journaling of any kind began taking a slide as soon as this began happening. While blogging has remained strong in certain areas such as corporate areas, the practice has become more obscure for people who are like me: amateurs who just have a love of history.
Can we really compete with these myriad channels on YouTube? There so many history channels on YouTube that it is hard to put a count on them. However, it is important to remember that there needs to there needs to be people that appeal to the niche of people who like writing over video. Sometimes people want to see a person explain something to them and other times, they want to see something different, like reading long-form text.
Text does have its advantages. It is able to truly get into the nitty-gritty of things that video can only hope for, and this is one of the reasons that I am still writing. I do like video but there are advantages to reading text. Long-form reading is something that human beings got to keep doing in order for knowledge to continue expanding.
Long form reading is becoming a lost art with people focusing their attention on memes and videos. The ability to hold people’s attention with text is something that every writer needs to be focusing on. We need to make sure that we are attracting the attention of the reader and not writing boring long quips that really do not appeal to anyone. Writing for long-form reading needs to focus on getting readers to appreciate the written word. We need to focus on making our writing concise and consistent throughout.
Why is this important? Well history writing is vital for being able to tell the story of humanity. Video is alluring and powerful, but we need to be able to tell that story with writing as well. Especially, Byzantine history, which is my concentration on this blog needs to be told to a wide audience, otherwise people are going to forget it and it continue to only be in the realm of scholars and intellectuals. Spreading the knowledge of obscure historical topics through text can help people understand their own history better.
As I have also stated before, writing about Byzantine history is one of my passions. I was attracted to the topic due to its obscure nature. I continue to write because writing is an artform that is truly beautiful and something that shouldn’t be forgotten. People need to appreciate the written word as much as the videos that they watch. Herodotus, the father of history would recognize this as such. He ”published” his works by speaking to audiences. He would understand that history writing will continue to thrive as long as there are people willing to learn about the ways of their ancestors. That means the writing will continue even if video remains the dominant way that people want to remember their historical stories.
Byzantine-Empire.com 