Peevish Blogger Blogging Peeves Part 2

I just found out that the more I read blogs, the more irritable I become. 

Why? Hoo boy this will be long I hope your boss is away talking to someone less important than you, my dear readers. Don’t call me glib. I don’t mean it.

The world of blogging (which I refuse to call the "blogosphere" unless I intend to demean blogging in general, but since I am demeaning it today, what the heck, blogosphere, toodles!) is not as good as it’s cracked up to be. Sure, it’s the paragon of “free press”. With that comes the tendency for blogospher0rz (my term for toodle bloggers. Don’t steal it.) to become as pestiferous as their wit has limits. It’s troubling to look at them because what they do have no place in prints. 

So, yes, this is about blogging peeves again. I hope this doesn’t come out on monthly basis because I can only handle so much hate. Why I have so many blogging peeves may come from my cynical nature, but I doubt that: I’m such an optimist after all (look, I’m awesome, okay? All right, you too, if you’re my follower. Now for those who are out of the loop, we have to enlighten them, because otherwise their blogs will do nothing but emit fecal carbons, and those will expedite global warming. Just kidding!!!) Actually, I’d love to think that these annoy only me, but the truth is that I hear of others not liking what they see in the blogging community too. Anyway, I want to voice my complaints, especially considering what has happened to me a few days ago, as you’ll find out shortly. Like my post from last month, I’m listing down some bothersome blogospher0rz’s habits. 

4. Writer-frontin’

It’s what I call people who think of themselves as amazing writers they’d do everything to remind people that. I’m not talking about those who say it jokingly either; I’m talking about those who mean it. They think they’ve such a handle of humor that even when they put a period (as in “.”) they expect readers ROFLing. Worse are those who treat their profile like it’s their resume perhaps for street cred purposes, and won’t stop emphasizing the writer part. [Sorry but I don’t believe in publicity by notoriety, so I’m not going to post the links] I’ve seen the worst case of that from someone who has a pen-in-hand image as a header. Hoo boy, what unassuming genius! Curious of what such illustrious luminary have to write? Well, nothing! Just Google News copy-pastes! I bet that guy wakes up everyday thinking “zomgz I ignored teh alarmz now my fellow bloggers has ta get delayed upd8s of teh recent headlinez WAAH (insert crying smiley)”. If he has something considerable to say about these news then he’s at least worth something. That’s not true. He once posted about global warming, and said he doesn’t believe in it. And that’s it! No substantiating facts, no theories of his own, but pure minimalistic “I don’t believe in it”. Whoa how Al Gore has fallen! Somebody award this “writer” a Nobel Peace Prize please. 

The lesson here is that you shouldn’t writer-front if you can’t show the skills to back it up, or else you subject yourself to the mockery of meanspirited bloggers, such as me. 

5. Award-committees

All right, readers, I want you to pause for a minute and let this question marinate: what do you have in mind when you hear the word “award”?

Cream of the crop? Life changing? Established beliefs shattering? Eureka inducing? Bee’s knees? Cat’s meow? Owl’s pillows? 

Now go here (provided you can wade through the clunky design, something I’ll nitpick later) and choose some random award winners, then come back to me. 

Exactly.

I cast suspicions on many award-giving bodies. Grammy, Oscar, and Metro Manila Film Festival are examples, but I am by heaps more dubitable about “Blog Awards” (again, I won’t mention what specifically). I don’t care if a blog invites more clicks: I care about the content. Not everything with many clicks is good read, and not everything that is good read gets many clicks. If you ask me which one deserves the award more, I’d say the latter, because they do deserve a wider audience. That’s why I find it distressing that that’s not what’s happening. You would feel the same way if you are among those who want independent films to flourish. 

It does not help that these blog are awarded by votes. I wonder by what kind of people. I fear what I might find. 

Meanwhile, there are those from my dope blog list. All very fine writers, thank you very much. The catch? No award crapolas. If any of you from my dope list is reading this, heed, then: you don’t need awards to prove that you’re somebody. You might want to read liz’s aspersions to blog awards for a more in-depth analysis of this debacle. 

I’m beginning to think that blogs with awards are nothing but cloying sellouts that do not know how to write without pandering to everyone. If this becomes consistently true (want to know if it is, based on my experience so far?) I might want to deliberately avoid these award winners. Screw popularity contests! 

6. Plagiarists

There’s a thesis paper waiting to happen whenever word of plagiarism is uttered. 

And then, that thesis paper will be plagiarized. 

I’m not a fan of bloggers copy-pasting their contents from another source, but there’s nothing wrong with doing it if you do cite the source.

And so you would understand why I’m not pleased if, of all people, advocates or political pundits (who are supposed to be more sensible than the average yuppie scumbag) take my photoshopped image of Gloria and claim it as their own and use it for their own selfish purposes. Yes, this I did not expect because it wasn’t a big deal for me to make, but apparently it has become notorious. As for me? Nary a mention. Good job, guys, I commend your ways of trying to unseat a president accused of stealing. In the meantime, don’t over-introspect. 

7. “Public service announcements”

When I open Google news or Yahoo news, I expect to be informed about the current events. But when I open a blog, ah, I expect to read an opinion, and it helps if it’s creative and well-thought. 

I shun blogs that speaks of nothing else you can’t read on today’s newspaper headlines - the exception of that is when it’s a political article substantiated with well-researched information, or approached at an unusual angle, but even for such, I have only a limited appetite (and I think I’ve heard enough of Lozada. Wake me up when something happens). The blogs that delight me more are those that talk about topics not heard on coffee shops everywhere. 

The stupid fact of life in blogging is that when you see a new Google news article, everyone’s going to write about it. How is your opinion going to matter more than the million other’s then, if you don’t even express it in a creative way? We don’t need you doing public service announcements; we need you offering some insights. 

Anyway, bloggers who do nothing but talk about ebay auction of Britney’s hair or about Justin and Scarlett are not going to find a spot on my dope blog list. 

8. Bandwagon

If you’re going to dwell on semantics, then yes 7 and 8 are identical. I see the case of 8 happening when someone blogs what everyone else has been blogging, but this in a more general sense that just the Google news headline. 

It’s not that complicated. Just go to many blogs and see their last week’s entries. You’ll find everyone talking about their Valentine’s Day. Now I admit I did something like this for VD, but that’s a short story, yo! Same goes for Christmas and New Year. It doesn’t always have to be about holidays: at the release of the latest blockbuster movies you’ll find mounds blogosher0rz talking about the same movie. It applies to whatever is chic, be it music, movies, fashion, or books. There’s nothing wrong with covering such topics (although it does reek of being bankrupt of ideas) if you can offer fresh insights about them (which counters the bankrupt bias). Sadly, that doesn’t happen a lot, as some talk about them just for the sake of being able to talk about them. For instance, I read one embarrassing “review” of Corrine Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On”: 

“Really cool. Simply sublime.” 

I mean, how is that going to inform anyone of what to expect from that song? “Sublime” is such an overused praise, it’s sublime. I hope my blog is sublime. I hope you’re sublime. I hope we all get soaked in subliminal sublimity. 

Banters aside, this does not annoy as me much as the rest of the peeves I’ve listed, but I’m still troubled in finding how little people try to come up with new ideas. Have you seen American Psycho? The main character became psychotic because everyone was always talking about the same thing: what’s hip. 

9. Bad design

I’d love to tell you that the writing’s the only thing that matter in blogging, but that’s not true. Your blog need to look presentable. The texts have to contrast from the background to a certain extent, but not so much that they hurt the eyes. Please de-clutter your blog because I hate to find you being mocked by Web Pages That Suck. Take away those unnecessary ads. Even better, take away those cheesy animated GIF’s, good Lord! Don’t make your blog look like something straight out of Microsoft Frontpage! And for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT USE COMICS SANS!