Wednesday, June 29, 2005
I Guess We're the Solution
Sometimes we need to turn toward the mirror and say to ourselves: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough . . . . and doggone it, people read my web log! Other times we need to just look at the mirror and see what we see.
Content:
The content of 90% (my own absolute guess) of blogs is political. On the one hand, it's interesting, perhaps thought-provoking, to think people are interested enough in politics that they become motivated to communicate their beliefs. On the other hand, it's a sign of the times that the attitude behind so much of this content is remarkably closed-minded. What blows my mind, though, is how so many individuals --- random housewives in Ohio -- start blogs just to share their political voice. Nothing else. No snippets. No reviews. No updates. Just political ranting. This is all these people have to communicate?
Other than political blogs, there are the "single-issue" blogs. These sometimes have a novelty-like feel to them. A blog about a trip. A blog about remodeling a home. A blog about a class. These can be either as boring as reading laundry care instructions, or they can be great. But they're almost always short-term blogs.
Sidebar Links:
I don't understand the infinitely long lists of links you see on some sites. It's like a listing of every website these people have ever visited. Who has the time to visit all these? I prefer the short listing. A nice mix but not too many ingredients.
Then there's the "I'll link you if you link me" game, which people seem to think of as a binding code akin to "I'll be you're friend if you'll be mine."
Why the hell is everybody linking to Wil Wheaton? I understand he was one of the first people doing this. But his site's just not that good. And I'm not going to be one of those come-lately complainers. I'll be clear: it's never been very good. Interesting for a peek once. That's all. But everybody's linking to him. I don't know if it's in hope that if he notices all these people linking to him that he will link out to all these sites that advertise him, or if it's some sort of blogger code: thou must link to Wil Wheaton.
Authorship:
I prefer the logs that are maintained by one person. Every once in a while I come upon a blog that is group-written, and I always wonder why -- why this group of people. And why don't they each have their own site? These sites rarely work. Either the voices are so different from each other that it's jarring, or the writers start disagreeing with each other, which is kind of like watching a couple get into a fight at a crowded restaurant, right when their waiter comes to take their order. Then there are the group-written sites where only one person writes, and I always wonder what those other people are doing there. Are they editors? Are they the people that put up the 202,674,915 links on the sidebars? Or are they just lazy? But then why don't they get booted off?
Another thing I've noticed is the attempt to be anonymous. It's valid, I guess, if one writes from work, about work. Otherwise, it seems so limiting. And unless you win the lottery, it's not as if the audience for blogs is large enough to lure the crazies out to look you up and send chain letters to your home.
Excess:
Live Journal users tend to have these idiotic notations to each post that describe the kind of mood the author is in, or what music they're listening to right now, or both. So if the writing can't reveal the mood, we've got the smiley-face/angry-face cartoon. This is what we've come to. And with regard to the music . . . . every post?! Every single post you have to include the music you're listening to?! And these people all lie -- that's the other thing. Somebody buys a new record and they just listen to it once? I don't think so. Like the rest of these world, these people listen to new music at least a few times in a row before adding it to their shelf. But that's where the lie occurs: they can't admit to the world that they may listen to something over and over. Because how many people will listen to a song and enjoy the song so much that they quickly hit the "rewind" to listen to it one more time? Everybody does that . . . if they're alone. Nobody wants to admit to someone else that they just LOVE that song, so they let the CD play. These Live Journal people are just perpetuating that lie. A new CD every post -- PSHSH! I cry bullshit.
You ever see one of those sites with the sidebar comments? This is the worst concept anyone ever came up with. It's not enough that there's comments readers can write for every post, now there's the sidebar comments, which typically focus on what people think about the site or their mood at the moment. Usually you see these on the pre-teen girl sites, but I've seen these spread to near-quality sites lately. 95% of the text of these include the phrase, "r u chillin?" at least a half-dozen times.
Content:
The content of 90% (my own absolute guess) of blogs is political. On the one hand, it's interesting, perhaps thought-provoking, to think people are interested enough in politics that they become motivated to communicate their beliefs. On the other hand, it's a sign of the times that the attitude behind so much of this content is remarkably closed-minded. What blows my mind, though, is how so many individuals --- random housewives in Ohio -- start blogs just to share their political voice. Nothing else. No snippets. No reviews. No updates. Just political ranting. This is all these people have to communicate?
Other than political blogs, there are the "single-issue" blogs. These sometimes have a novelty-like feel to them. A blog about a trip. A blog about remodeling a home. A blog about a class. These can be either as boring as reading laundry care instructions, or they can be great. But they're almost always short-term blogs.
Sidebar Links:
I don't understand the infinitely long lists of links you see on some sites. It's like a listing of every website these people have ever visited. Who has the time to visit all these? I prefer the short listing. A nice mix but not too many ingredients.
Then there's the "I'll link you if you link me" game, which people seem to think of as a binding code akin to "I'll be you're friend if you'll be mine."
Why the hell is everybody linking to Wil Wheaton? I understand he was one of the first people doing this. But his site's just not that good. And I'm not going to be one of those come-lately complainers. I'll be clear: it's never been very good. Interesting for a peek once. That's all. But everybody's linking to him. I don't know if it's in hope that if he notices all these people linking to him that he will link out to all these sites that advertise him, or if it's some sort of blogger code: thou must link to Wil Wheaton.
Authorship:
I prefer the logs that are maintained by one person. Every once in a while I come upon a blog that is group-written, and I always wonder why -- why this group of people. And why don't they each have their own site? These sites rarely work. Either the voices are so different from each other that it's jarring, or the writers start disagreeing with each other, which is kind of like watching a couple get into a fight at a crowded restaurant, right when their waiter comes to take their order. Then there are the group-written sites where only one person writes, and I always wonder what those other people are doing there. Are they editors? Are they the people that put up the 202,674,915 links on the sidebars? Or are they just lazy? But then why don't they get booted off?
Another thing I've noticed is the attempt to be anonymous. It's valid, I guess, if one writes from work, about work. Otherwise, it seems so limiting. And unless you win the lottery, it's not as if the audience for blogs is large enough to lure the crazies out to look you up and send chain letters to your home.
Excess:
Live Journal users tend to have these idiotic notations to each post that describe the kind of mood the author is in, or what music they're listening to right now, or both. So if the writing can't reveal the mood, we've got the smiley-face/angry-face cartoon. This is what we've come to. And with regard to the music . . . . every post?! Every single post you have to include the music you're listening to?! And these people all lie -- that's the other thing. Somebody buys a new record and they just listen to it once? I don't think so. Like the rest of these world, these people listen to new music at least a few times in a row before adding it to their shelf. But that's where the lie occurs: they can't admit to the world that they may listen to something over and over. Because how many people will listen to a song and enjoy the song so much that they quickly hit the "rewind" to listen to it one more time? Everybody does that . . . if they're alone. Nobody wants to admit to someone else that they just LOVE that song, so they let the CD play. These Live Journal people are just perpetuating that lie. A new CD every post -- PSHSH! I cry bullshit.
You ever see one of those sites with the sidebar comments? This is the worst concept anyone ever came up with. It's not enough that there's comments readers can write for every post, now there's the sidebar comments, which typically focus on what people think about the site or their mood at the moment. Usually you see these on the pre-teen girl sites, but I've seen these spread to near-quality sites lately. 95% of the text of these include the phrase, "r u chillin?" at least a half-dozen times.
