You know how there are those blogs you keep reading and commenting on because, you know, they read and comment on yours? Like, it’s a relationship blog and you can’t imagine how they get anyone to sleep with them, or it’s a fashion blog and all of their clothes are out of the bad part of the 80s, or it’s a humor blog and all of their jokes are about PMS. And you’re like, “OMG, how can you not realize that your blog is so much worse than everyone else’s? How can you read other blogs and not think, ‘I’m doing it wrong’?”
What if you (meaning I) are that blog for other people?
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I read some blogs that I consider total train wrecks (like, why do you have to capitalize every other sentence? That should be done for effect, and effect only. And, good lord, can you complain about your husband more? Your relationship sounds SUPER healthy.), and yet, I keep reading them. Not because they even know I’m there, but because I have some weird fascination with them.
I think it’s the same reason I’m facebook friends from a girl from high school who is super-conservative, moved to Oklahoma, has 2 babies, and now sells this weird diet drink on facebook. I have no idea what’s going through her head, but I want to study you! For SCIENCE! (See what I did there? For effect!)
I am probably that person for other people because I lose track of whether I’m writing in first, second, or third person in a single sentence.
I kind of want to read these total train wrecks now, no joke. I barely have time to read the blogs I actually want to, though, let alone extraneous blogs that don’t know I exist. Although, blogs that make me feel better about my sentence construction and relationship might be worth abandoning some of you for. Especially you specifically, since your blog is all “this guy abandoned his homeland for me, and we’re in loooooooooooooove”. j/k, j/k.
God, I read that blog. What a LOOOOOSER.
All the frigging time. I’m pretty sure I’m doing something wrong, but I don’t know what. I’ve narrowed it down the following:
1. Not posting enough (one “how to grow your blog” thing I read suggested posting every day, which I don’t even know is possible for me, as there are days where I barely speak to another human, let alone write to them)
2. My posts are too long
3. There’s no theme or consistency to my blog (I initially thought this would be too limiting, now I’m wondering if that’s the direction I should take)
4. The phantom “something” that I haven’t figured out yet.
I always wonder about the every day thing. I almost think it’s the opposite. You post every day, and people expect it and stop thinking about it. It’s the blogs that only show up in Google Reader a couple times a week that suddenly seem novel. But I still blog just about every day because I think I have important things to say, for some reason.
Your posts are long, but I love every word of them. Except the ones I skim. But still! And look at, like, Hyperbole and a Half. That bitch posts mile-long stories with 400 drawings and gets 4000 comments on every one. I always tell myself that people will read whatever you write if it’s compelling and that I shouldn’t dumb myself down for the general Internet public. On the other hand, since no one’s reading me, I must not be compelling. Oops.
I know what you mean about themes. If only I posted about my kids or books or movies or celebrities or whatever, there would be a niche readership built in for my niche blog. (I thought New Yorkers would come out of the woodwork if I posted about New York, but no.) But I think the theme of your blog is you, and that’s enough. You have a specific voice and are a specific kind of person. I don’t care what you’re writing about; I like it because I like you.
At this point, I honestly think the phantom is luck, but I try to make up for it by commenting on the blogs I like, hoping that they’ll return the favor so I don’t look like a loser, and wishing for Taylor Swift to tweet about one of my posts someday.
To me, your blog is like that afternoon chocolate chip cookie. It’s a quick hit of something good, doesn’t monopolize my whole afternoon and leaves me smiling afterwards.
(Especially when you yell at rude bus riders!)
Why are you getting afternoon chocolate chip cookies, and why am I not?
Is this your passive aggressive way of telling me something?
I hope not, because I really do enjoy reading your blog!
No! No! Seeing your blog’s name in my Google Reader is a daily highlight. It’s weird how you can not know someone and live almost entirely opposite lives and yet look forward to hearing about her baby and dog and husband and job. I’m not even supposed to like babies! Nor dogs!
Don’t worry guys, it’s me. Ett is secretly e-breaking up with me, even though we totally are biffles on the interwebs.
Also, have you seen any bulging dicks lately?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Except my blog is just baby pictures. Of a really cute kid. Like, painfully cute. So there.
Ha, I’m actually thinking about the Camilla series and divorce on Dooce right now. I think every day, I have to stop looking at this. It’s an absolute train wreck. I want to punch Cami in the throat, and I want to drown Dooce. Yet, here I am… Still reading her.
I bet everyone who read this thought “Eeek! She’s talking about my blog!”
Soo.. are you talking about mine? :D
Your blog posts always make me smile [unless you’re talking about something sad, I’m not a mean person, I promise!] – so you’re doing something right!
You know what’s really weird? There are some blogs I read now that I only started reading to figure out why everyone else liked them so much, absolutely could not figure it out (like, literally rolled my eyes at their posts), then ended up liking them over time anyways. And I still could not tell you why I like those blogs. Maybe I just have some creepy psycho stalker alternate personality that just wants to know everything about everyone?
Come to think of it, I am kind of nosy, and I do like other people’s drama (as long as I’m not in the middle of it thankyouverymuch).
But I draw the line at your baby’s pooping habits. No one needs to know about that.
I, for one, never thought you could be talking about me. And still don’t.
For what it’s worth, I would be very surprised indeed if your blog was one of those, for others.
I love Doris Day. And The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Wait, so I’m NOT that to you? Huh..
I started sweating profusely before I even made it through the first sentence…
*GULP*
I think my blogging identity kind of centers on being That Blog for everybody.
But this is most definitely not That Blog for me.