Sunday, January 02, 2005
 
So You Want To Be A Blogger
Welcome and Happy New Year!

So you woke up this morning having already broken 90% of your New Year Resolutions. Not only did you eat fast food, but you did so off the back of another dead naked drug-selling hooker while not running on the treadmill you bought four years ago. Ah well, nobody's perfect.

But there's still the one where you said you wanted to "write something". You don't have the stamina, imagination, will-power or talent to write anything anyone would ever consider buying. What's a New Year Resolution maker to do?

And that is how you stumbled onto the idea of blogging. "It's not like anyone checks this stuff for quality," you thought, "how hard could it be?"

The answer, of course, is "A hell of a lot easier than you could have possibly imagined."

But now you have to provide some kind of content. The trick is to strike some kind of balance between doing as little work as possible but still drawing enough suckers in to read the thing to keep your fragile ego hovering above the red line marked MESSY BLOODY SUICIDE.

Since I have posted more than once, that makes me an expert on blogging. You'd be surprised how many of these things dry up and blow away after the first "Hey whats up Tony sed I shud do this so here I am wit my new blog!!!!!! leave comments!!!! hugz!!!" post.

Don't want to fall into that trap? Pops has the answers to all your questions.

To write and maintain a successful blog, there are only two things you need to know and remember at all times while writing. Here they are. Pay close attention.

1) Nobody gives a shit what you think. Nobody cares what book you're reading or what you thought about whatever movie you last saw or what kind of music you like or whether or not you'd fuck Britney Spears or who your friends are or what you think about the president or why your boyfriend is so special or how goddamn insufferably cute your kids are. Nobody cares. Nobody. Least of all me. I don't know you and you don't know me. Stop trying to impress me. Your "ramblings" or "rants" or "observations" or "musings on life in general" are no use to anyone anywhere ever and should be quietly kept to yourself until you die miserable, cold, hungry, forgotten, alone and unmourned in some rainy alleyway somewhere very very soon.

2) You don't give a shit about #1. It can never, ever occur to you that nobody gives a shit about what you think. You're going to post it anyway. Like everything else that involves thinking and writing and knowing, like every single other philosophical or historical or epistemelogical truth, the basic truth of blogging is paradoxical: the less interested you are in the opinions of other people, the more interested they will be in your opinions. The more inward, narcissistic, self-involved, self-important, delusionally self-referential you are the more people will flock to your blog and eat up what you have to say.

Provided you are not retarded and speak the language they are trying to read.

Although those do harbor some of their own intrinsic prurient value.

Call this one 2a) If you read through #1 and were offended, insulted, discouraged or in any way dissuaded, stop trying to write a blog immediately. This is not for you. Do you have any idea what people are going to say in your Comments about the ridiculous self-important nonsense you throw out there for all the world to see? One time I got called a "pinheaded masturbatory venereal disease pustule of a sad excuse for an infected boil on the ass of humanity". I banned my mom's access to my blog the next day.

Thick skin, people.

And an infinite propensity for denial.

Drinking doesn't hurt either.

Welcome to the blogosphere.

Good luck.


This post on the Narcissus Scale [back from the dead]: 4.5


Pops

Comments:
Gee, Pops. Are you like having a bad day or something? Hugz!!
 
Larry: This is me being helpful. Not my strong suit, I'll admit.

MPH: Don't I fucking wish.
 
a-HAH! Valid and undeniable proof that I am the greatest. My kids are the cutest fucking things like, EVER, I so don't give a crap about others opinions, and I'm drunk RIGHT NOW. I RULE.
 
Nobody cares.
Well, why would they?
Why are people so fragile about that anyway? A blog is whatever the hell you want it to be-lots of people use them as online journals, so they can sit down and write out all the shit that's running through their head if they want. It's our own fault for reading it, if we do. And all the shout-outs in the world are still more comprehensible to me than the knitting blogs, I mean, how many people have to talk about the poncho they just started for their sister's boyfriend's aunt anyway?
I think there's truth in the thick skin, and I guess you open yourself up to all kinds of comments if you publish publicly.
Or, I'm just too lazy to care.
Whatever.
Happy new year,
J
 
I agree with all of that except to say that knitting is harder than it looks, especially if you're knitting for Jesus. That's alot of responsibility and requires a massive support system.

http://christianknitters.blogspot.com/
 
I think you forgot to mention the Me-Mes--that you must do at least 48 of these each month and post them on your blog like we give a shit. And also do all the "What type of Jedi Knight/Val Helsing character/Simpson/rock and roller are you?" quizzes. (Hmm. Does the plural of quiz have 2 Zs?)
 
You're absolutely right. We have to start working on a Master List and then post it all over the blogosphere to educate the newcomers.

And I think the plural of quiz actually has THREE Zs. I have no idea where they go though. Quizzzes? Quizzez? That last one looks French.
 
As the author of many, many (too damn many) "musings" and "ramblings," thank goodness I wasn't offended by #1 or I would be curled in a fetal ball crying. Much like you described in your year in review blog. So I no longer give a crap what people think, I love reading, I love the Raiders (noticed how I slipped that in) and I need to go re-read your pillows post.

Rory
 
Rory, having you hear reminds me of one other thing I forgot to tell new bloggers: never use your real name. That way you are free to attack attack attack without fear of repercussion.

Like HFB earlier in the comments here, you are obviously an expert in this field and have no use for my "help" such as it is.

Yeah yeah Raiders blah. Chargers-Jets, this Saturday on a TV near you.
 
I come back, and this is all I get? Sheesh.
 
And when in doubt, just put up funny pictures of the President. People eat that shit up.
 
Sunny: Yes, exactly! Thank you for helping. See new people, this is an example of the kind of cold, callous, unfeeling, ungrateful, cutting, sarcastic, mean-spirited, dismissive remark you should expect before you start.

Thanks Sunny.

Brian: If I knew how to post pictures, this blog would all be Photoshopped GWBush in three-ways with Osama, Saddam and various phallus-shaped weapons employed as sex toys.
 
Woo. It's a good thing you don't know how to post pictures, in that case.
 
K: Let's all celebrate my ignorance, shall we?

MPH: Yeah, what a hack. He's either writing about Trevin Skeens, Jennifer Garner or me. I don't know whether to be honored or to start the paperwork on a restraining order.
 
I don't know if you check comments from this far back, but as a new kid on the blog I found this post fucking HILARIOUS! Luckily, I'm sufficiently "inward, narcissistic, self-involved, self-important and delusionally self-referential" that I might have a chance at the blogging majors. Right after I win American Idol.

Your bloggin' noggin cracks me up. And the line [another post] about blogging being somewhere between masturbation and Battlefield Earth? Classic! Thanks for putting your best posts over here for us newbies to enjoy. Gotta add them to my next meme or cover my breasts with them for HNT. LOL. WTF. OMG. Hugz. *squeeze*
 
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