Of Chimps and Charlatans

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Of Chimps and Charlatans

April 16, 2008

Seeing as how arbitrarily-prefixed the word “problogging” is (where’s “conblogging”?), correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m taking for granted that it’s the short of “professional blogging”, as in “getting paid to blog”.

So, pro-blogging. Although many bloggers are into it, some decry it. It’s the same deal with why people spite bands that have stopped being “indy”, and have “sold out”. Simply put, some’s love of blogging is so peculiar, they put this craft on an altar, and they call “sacrilege” when others do it for profit.

I’m undecided about paid blogs. Yeah, it sounds spectacular - what’s more spiffy than earning without leaving home, typing while at the spacious comfort of your own sofa (if you have a laptop, that is) and not worrying about travel expenses, smog, pickpockets and traffic? You can even download movies (shh!) while you toil away. On the other hand, not everyone is capable of writing multiple commentaries every day. Some get exhausted. And I think that is happening to many probloggers - without their realizing - and is the reason their posts are becoming timeworn. Sure, some probloggers excel consistently - and many props to them - but it’s easier to find those that are flat.

But, sure, problogging is neat, and is responsible for unprecedented surge of information. I’m just not in love with it, and I can understand other jaded-souls. Problogging is so hyped, probloggers chest-bump each other until they get breast cancer, and the news is so acknowledging them like it wants to join the orgy, and Time Magazine is droning on and on in multiple articles about how problogging is the nirvana of New Journalism and that probloggers are suddenly the arthouse indy working-class heroes who can write elegiac documentary-like overviews of reality blablabla… With those noises, who wouldn’t be irritated?

Then again, you know what I can’t stand? Ignorant self-proclaimed “real bloggers” who think they’re so illuminated, they chastise probloggers, while claiming themselves as of higher art. Example? This guy.

Of Prostitutes, and Other Bloggers

-Siege Malvar

You know what I can’t stand? It’s when "probloggers" talk about "how to blog" as if they know jackshit about writing.

Real bloggers, when are we going to stand up against this mockery of the form, this exploitation of the medium?

Don’t you think this is a growing problem? People making money out of a medium we have made popularize with our skills and artistry? By our art, we have made blogging respectable! By our passions, we have made blogging authentic! By our compulsion to reach out with what we know we must share, we have made blogging alive, dynamic, vibrant!

Who are these charlatans, these pretenders to our court? Who are these apes with their skills for copy pasting?

I will continue to blog free from ads. I have always been blogging free from ads.

I mourn the sad state of blogging. I mourn the rise of the blogging prostitutes.

And even if I ignore the bad grammars (I won’t nitpick them, thank you), his ego bewilders me. I’d like him to demonstrate just what part of him is “passionate” and “artful”. This part? The only thing formidable about him is his baseball bat, and his post read more like a toiletpaper scribbles of a stuck-up yuppie scum. Nothing he says flows into why he consider probloggers “prostitutes”. And, by the way, “blogging prostitutes”? That sounds more like hookers who blog. I’d like to hear more of that.

And, ah, “charlatan”. It’s one of my favorite insults, but I’m not sure this guy understands what it means. Charlatan is when you boast of having skills you do not possess, or when you’re selling shoddy products you advertise as “the cutting edge of cutting edge”. Charlatan is the merchant who sells a spear, that he claims can penetrate through anything, and a shield, that he claims can defend from anything. (What happens if this all-powerful spear meets the all-enduring shield then?) Charlatan is when you say you have acerbic wit, and you use mass/volume when saying people are dense. And when you claim that your writing is artistic and passionate and skillful, and yet, well, artistry and passion and skill and what crackpot legerdemain aren’t even remotely near your writing, what does that make you?

Let that question besiege you, The Siege.

Posted by nightdreamer at 5:38 pm | permalink

Previous Comments

I don’t really care what other people say about monetized blogs. At least these people make money out of it and somehow augments their earnings. I do have a lot of probloggers in my blogroll. If I can help out in anyway I can, I do. There’s no harm in helping someone earn money. It’s the purists who undermine the talents of these people. Kung naiinggit sila, gawin din nila. I’ll support any problogger as long as I find their site worthy and if they really need my help.

Posted by Schumey at April 21, 2008, 10:02 am

I would support problogging more if they were better written, but I can’t help noticing that a lot of them talk about the same, recent, popular topics in the most uninspiring way. The reason for this is that many probloggers believe that if they update their blog as many times as they can in a day, they’d receive more clicks. And that’s true, except, it begs the question of if it’s possible for everyone to write 3 post a day - including weekends - while retaining a high quality.

Myself, I can’t imagine updating my blog 3 times a day with lengthy analysis of everything that’s happening. Yeah, that’s exhausting. Most journalists only have to publish an article a day.

I’m basically not promoting a “write until you drop” mentality.

But I’m not among the “purists” who like to undermine probloggers either.

Posted by nightdreamer at April 21, 2008, 10:10 am

There isn’t a term for it, but maybe it’s pro to noob as opposed to pro to con.

Since you asked about grammar and stuff at the last post, you’d prolly be nit-picky about this.

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