BB, there was only little I knew about weblogs.
I came across a few & I soon developed a kind of aversion against them. The sound of the word ‘blog’ made me shiver. Not only, because to me it was a portmanteau of the sound-of-vomit and frog – but also, because I knew that ‘blog’ meant: bad poetry, blurry pictures and boring diary-tales.
And I was not the only one who thought so: Asking Google for “blogs suck” results in about 97,700,000 sites. Ironically these consist mainly of blogs that either talk about their own idiocy, or offer cheesy advice on how to ‘keep your blog from sucking’. Donald Brook wrote a marvelous seven-page essay on hating blogs, back in 2002. His main point is, that there are simply too many stupid people out there, who feel the urge to expose themselves blogging – flooding the net with many words and little say.
It is not hard to imagine how thrilled I was finding out, that I had to participate in a weblog myself: Posting every week, fighting the evil swamps of search-engine-results and trying not to get too crazy over the whole thing. (It takes me ages to write one stupid blog entry and the awareness of compulsion hangs like a big black cloud over my thoughts – every single day of the week, making me permanently stressed about finding the next good topic to write about.)
The more I tried to fit the scheme, the worse my posts actually got. While some may say that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”, I think that an original approach always beats a bad homage (which is not flattering at all). Oh right, I forgot that there’s “nobody interested in my opinion” – sorry.
Moving on… Blogs are, therefore they polarize!
Like any other type of media they have pros and cons, fanboys and haters. Nowadays blogs, especially micro-blogs like twitter, are celebrated as a fresh, democratic form of journalism, because basically every Jane and Joe out there is potentially able to tell the world something interesting. Creating authentic real-time news for instance! The validity of information might not be guaranteed, but after all it’s the same for professional breaking news, too. What we are sure to get on the WWW is a variety of views on one topic – if we are eager enough to look for them. (While I’ll surely refrain from registering and posting on twitter for now, it woke my curiosity as a tool to feel the pulse of people. Good thing that there are lots of apps and mash-ups out there on that one…)
What started out as notes-to-self(-and-friends) about cool stuff found on the web, eventually developed into some weird mass medium for everything and everyone! I admit that I still don’t exactly love it (and that’ a matter of taste which should not longer be argued about), but at least I overcame my personal stereotype of blogs-being-strictly-stupid by exploring some gems and experiencing the effort that is put in one post.
FUTURIMA 
Hi,
I just want to tell you that I really appreciate the way you state your personal opinion about blogging.
I thought that by graduating gymnasium and going to university it would no longer be necessary to occupy our minds with things that are not relevant to our studies or future career. But as with the case of blogging we can clearly see that actually there are still these “irrelevant”, to our interests, tasks that we need to go through in order to continue forward. There are two things that we can do in this case in order to make it easier for us: The first thing that we can do is simply develop a formal plan to follow for every blog post (which will formalize and in a way facilitate the assignment for every week). The second thing is to find a way to make the assignments match our interest which is really hard to do. In my opinion just stick to the first option, develop a plan, and follow it for every post.
It was pleasure to read your post.
Funny thing, I actually tought about writing a post on blogging, too. I usually found myself making fun of those stereotype “bloggi blogger girls” that are daily uploading suuuuper fashionable and selfcentred pictures of their greaaaaaat outfit. I always refused being part of this blogger group, mainly because I never felt like my opinion or even worse, only my looks are even worth publishing on the WWW.
The thing is that “AB” (after Bruce) I probably would not create my own blog, but I have clearly learned how to use blogs in order to get different views on certain topics, just like you are concluding.
Both your topic and your writing style are very appealing to me and I could have not expressed it in a better way.
Chapeau!
I see your point and I do agree with the most of it. Blogging stops to be boring when you are writing and/or searching smth that pleases your interests. As Dian said, it is uneasy to match every time our interests with the given tasks. And he found 2 solutions for that, whereas I know only one.
And I learned it from – you wont believe – from one blog.
Here is the solution: “be wary of following the careers advice your college gives you”.
Imagine, you want to be a… i dont know – designer and instead of working with models, materials and fashion, your School asks and recommends you to do an internship in a museum, in on of the boring museum ever So, you are spending let’s say a year in that museum. We want to be free? We must first learn to be captivated.
“This career path, in other words, is counter-educational. It teaches you to do what you don’t want to do, to be what you don’t want to be. It is an exceptional person who emerges from this process with her aims and ideals intact. ” by George Monbiot
best regards,
Marina
P.S. the heading is ruling!
Hey!
Your title immediately caught my attention and I wanted to go on reading. The way you built up “your story” dealing with your aversion for blogs and the way you found some positivsm to them after all combined with your choice of words and some witty allusions (I think I got your point) make your contribution to the web an enjoyable read. In my opinion, “some” are wrong when saying that “nobody [is] interested in [your] opinion”. There is nothing wrong with blogging as long as we are given the freedom to develop our own thoughts matched with our own style. Noone should tell you what to write about. If you find a topic of your interest, just do it. Others may find it interesting, too.
Hey Arina,
I love your style of writing. It’s really enjoyable to read your post. Your headline is original, just like Ana described, it immediately caught,my attention as well.
I feel the same about blogging, There’s so much crap out there, so many people seem to feel the urge to tell their stories that are not necessarily interesting, however if you have a closer look, blogging can actually be useful and helpful, in the case of political events that recently happened in the Arabic world, during the revolutions, blogging was the main tool to express what was really going on, as the press would only represent the regime’s interests. Other than that, as we recently learned, tools like google reader can be helpful to filter blogs that are of actual interest to us.
I actually don’t agree to the statement I often heard “nobody [is] interested in [your] opinion” when it comes to blogs. After all, that’s what blogs are all about, right? Anyways, keep on blogging in a free world 😉