About A Blog

Most of the people who visit this site probably have little idea what a blog really is. Hell, sometimes I hardly feel like I know what one is. The combination of IRL friends asking “what the crap is a ‘blog’, anyway?” and the recurring series of “this is how blogging should be” posts have made me a little more aware of my feelings about this whole blog thing. So, for the benefit of myself and others, I thought I’d jot down a little something (which will, inevitably, turn into a big something).

Inside: Anatomy of a Blog | Blogger Roll-Call | Cause to Blog | Blogs as a Fad

Anatomy of a Blog
There are only, in my not-so-humble opinion, two things that are requisite in the realm of blogs: Writing and Links.

The most important part of a blog is the writing. Period. That’s the meat, the payload, and the focal point. You can have the best links in the world, but it’s your writing that defines you. It really doesn’t matter what kind of writing it is, either. You can spout senseless, near-daily drivel about your day-to-day life that your own mother probably doesn’t care about, much like I do. You can write beautiful or insightful prose that keeps people coming back. You can provide all sorts of links for amusement and/or annoyance of your visitors, for which Batgrl and Dave are known. You can be like Hoopty and write about boobies, hockey, and sheer tomfoolery. You can just be you like Lee, Kare, Tess, and Ali do. It really doesn’t matter. Blog writing runs the gamut. Of course, what you write dictates who visits or, rather, who comes back. I’m a good example, really… I don’t have the words of Tracy or the humor of Dave, but I have my readers nonetheless.

Why? For all of the remarkable bloggers out there, why do people come back to to bloggers who don’t stand in the field? That, my friends, is fairly simple. And complex. The writing might fill a need, a want, or a void; or you might just “hit it off” with the blogger. It’s a connection — you have to feel something. In the end, what you write doesn’t dictate the quality of your blog it merely decides who’s going to visit and who’s going to visit again.

The other (arguably) mandatory part of a blog is links — lots and lots of links. Links to other blogs, links to people who link you, webrings, internal links, external links, links to links, and links to people who first linked the current thing you’re linking. It’s a big scary web. The links themselves are not as interesting as the REASONS for linking.

This has been hotly debated all over the place, and most of the fuss deals with “The Link List”, sometimes known as “daily reads” or whatever. It’s the list of blogs that the blog owner obviously promotes, probably suports, and allegedly visits. There are those that take linking very personally. The Kindergarten Linkers, I sometimes call them (not because the mentality is childish and not called so meaning harm or offense). It just reminds me of playground friendships in grade school, one day you’re good friends — the next, bitter enemies. Link = love … no link = no like. Then you have the Utilitarian Linkers. Those folks who link what they read and de-link what they don’t. Sometimes de-links are with hard feelings, sometimes not. Another form of linker is the PR Linker. They link to places that they want to promote and, usually, to places that promote them. There are others, no doubt, but these are the most prevalent archetypes. Links to specific things in their blog entries are not necessarily subject to these same categories.

Regardless of why a person links, or to whom they link, one thing remains: the links are what brings the blogging community together (and sometimes what drives it apart). Of course, that stands to reason… links are what binds the internet as a whole together as well.

Blogger Roll-Call
Who blogs? One might assume that blogging is left to the nerdy and technical who have nothing better to do but write stuff online. Well, one might get that impression from visiting this site, anyway. At any rate, one would be wrong, dead wrong. The widespread availability of free and public blogging tools like Blogger has lead to a mass, no, a horde of people blogging who really don’t know squat about the technical side. On the flip side, there are also some very nerdy and technical people who run blogs. People of every various human category you can think of blog. This seems like a given. It seems obvious. It seems like someone shouldn’t have to be told. Nevertheless, it’s good to hear it out loud, especially if you’re new to these parts. Why? Simple: be cognizant of your pre-conceived notions about a blogger. Be aware that they may be very, very wrong. Also be aware that the blogger may be a different human being in real life. This is the internet, after all, and when mommy told you that you could be whatever you wanted, she was absolutely right. I’m actually a sweet, caring, compassionate, and soft-spoken young southern gentleman… … …ooooor not.

Cause to Blog
Quite literally there are as many reasons to blog as there are bloggers. Instead of trying to isolate and categorize each and every reason, I thought I’d offer a few of the ones that I perceive to be fairly wide-spread.

Blogs as a Fad
Face it. Blogs are a fad. Though I do believe what Tracy said, and that’s that the folks who are in it for the writing will stay, even after the buzz has died down. Though, I’m not sure if it’s a fad that will ever really disappear. I tend to think, instead, that mainstream blogging will evolve and change and become something else. Maybe still called blogging, maybe not. At any rate, I tend to think the popularity of blogging will wear off. Here’s why:

1. The Glory Hounds are facing a more difficult competition to get the glory from. Seriously, how many new blogs are out there that are probably just looking for fame (if you can call it that) but never get noticed in the sea of other new blogs?
   
   

2. Trolls. The more popular blogging becomes, the more likely there are to be trolls. We’ve all seen that there’s a certain sect of bloggers who are, for one reason or another, very very sensitive. They don’t take well to trolls. Besides, many bloggers bear their souls in their writing and probably don’t appreciate the random snide comment of a troll at work. I think they’ll drive the more sensitive bloggers away… then get bored themselves.
   
   

3. Some new fad will come along and sweep away all of the fair-weather-bloggers to something newer and cooler.
   
   

Conclusion
I really don’t have any. I’m sure there are things to add, things people will take issue with, and things that I’ll take issue with later on. Nevertheless, I’m not here to pass judgement or say that one blog/blogger is better than any other. In fact, maybe that is my point: all this talk of the “right” way to blog is a little silly, don’t you think? Who appointed you the grand-high-master of blogging protocol? Nobody. Now, that’s not to say that you don’t have the right to bitch about people whose blogging styles you don’t like in your own blog, cause that would be a little hypocritical, no? Anyway, it’s late, I’m tired, and my words are flowing so much more poorly before I began this novel. G’night!