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March 6, 2005
Blogging 101 - Don't Suck
By QBlog in Blogging 101
One thing I love about blogs is that anyone can start one and say just about anything. One thing I hate about blogs is that anyone can start one and say just about anything. An obvious and valid criticism of blogging is that most blogs just plain suck. It's true, but not unique to blogging. Most books suck too. So do most television shows. And most radio shows. And most newspapers. And the list goes on. The norm is not to be great and wonderful and cool because if that were the norm, then... well you get the idea.
But, I digress. The point of this edition of Blogging 101 is to highlight some valid (and not so valid) criticisms of blogging. My hope is that you'll read the following criticisms and maybe learn what to avoid in your own blog. To keep things managable, I'm listing five of my favorite criticisms.
- Why
I F—ing Hate Weblogs! - "As we can see, clearly weblogs are
f—ing retarded as a general rule. Most weblog authors either think they
have something important to say (self-centered and egotistical authors), or
believe that they have an audience that cares what they think (delusional
and irrational authors.) What can be plainly seen is that most weblog authors
need something to push them back into the real world from the self-centered
and delusional world they have created for themselves."
- Why
"Blogging" Sucks - 'The problem with all of this is the nomenclature
of 'blogging' sucks. No, not 'blogging.' You know, 'BLOGGING.' I mean the
word 'blogger' or 'blogging'. It's meaningless. Saying 'bloggers are x or
y' is equally meaningless. Someone claiming to speak for bloggers is more
than meaningless it is delusional. Treating 'bloggers' as a group, a species,
a breed, or anything else is meaningless. As I noted previously, the word
'blogger' is an empty vessel into which too many, pour too much, in order
to mean too little."
- Paglia
Pans Blogging - "Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar
amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the
pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline,
a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting
to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's
no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure,
but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit."
- Blogging ...
Blah, Blah, Blah - "U.S. News & World Report reported last week
that several senior Republican senators — upon hearing that 'blogs'
had uncovered the Dan Rather scandal, helped to defeat Tom Daschle and pushed
for the resignation of CNN executive Eason Jordan — demanded that 'blogs'
be added to their official Web sites. Even though, as a Capitol Hill Web consultant
told the magazine, most of them hadn't the slightest idea of what a 'blog'
actually is."
- I Hate Blogs - "People who write blogs walk around in their own sweet, sweet smugness, spending their days – I assume – collecting anecdotes ('and then, guffaw, he said "penis" out loud. In public!') and then littering the Internet with them, merely for posterity because, of course, if it ain’t on the Internet it doesn’t exist."
I'll just add that the one of the most important aspects of blogging is to know your audience. Understand who's reading your blog or who you want to read your blog and then write for them. If you don't want anyone to read your blog then why the hell are you blogging?
Blogging 101 publishes every Sunday and provides blogging tips, advice and tutorials for blog newbies and veterans alike.