There have been many bloggers and creators over the years who have influenced the world of politics and the tech we use to talk about it. One key voice is 51-year-old Andrew Sullivan, an HIV-positive gay man and political conservative who started blogging 15 years ago at The Dish. Sullivan's blog moved around over the years, from Time to The Daily Beast to The Atlantic to its self-hosted site, where Andrew was able to raise 1 million to keep his site alive. But now, after blogging on a nearly daily basis, Sullivan announced that he was done.
In a post on Wednesday, Sullivan wrote that he was taking a break from blogging for two reasons. First; because he wants to change up his career, and second; because he wants to take time to write something more substantial than a blog post, read a book thoroughly, maybe write a book and spend time with his loved ones.
Sullivan desires to explore something more than the blog post, which isn't able to fulfill him.
"I'm a human being before I am a writer; and a writer before I am a blogger, and although it's been a joy and a privilege to have helped pioneer a genuinely new form of writing, I yearn for other, older forms. I want to read again, slowly, carefully. I want to absorb a difficult book and walk around in my own thoughts with it for a while. I want to have an idea and let it slowly take shape, rather than be instantly blogged. I want to write long essays that can answer more deeply and subtly the many questions that the Dish years have presented to me. I want to write a book."
Sullivan also mentioned health issues: "I've had increasing health challenges these past few years. They're not HIV-related; my doctor tells me they're simply a result of fifteen years of daily, hourly, always-on-deadline stress. These past few weeks were particularly rough - and finally forced me to get real."
Many consider Sullivan to be one of the few professional bloggers who was able to convert his writing into a career. When Sullivan announced his decision, Politico media reporter Dylan Byers noted, "Sullivan was able to keep blogging alive (and lucrative) long after the era of blogs had come to an end -- at The Atlantic, at The Daily Beast, and, in recent years, through the funding of readers.....While there is still some demand for Sullivan's outspokenness -- he's at his best when he's arguing, aggressively -- there is far less demand for unspecialized aggregation.....Sullivan deserves immense credit for keeping his project alive, but its days were numbered."
It's unclear what will happen to The Dish as a website after Sullivan leaves, or what projects Sullivan intends to pursue in the near future. But whatever he does, he's sure to attract a lot of his fans.
