Cowboy Caleb the liberal arts, grown-up stuff & random mischief

How to be an irritating Singaporean blogger

How to be an irritating Singaporean blogger. I made a list.

List also applies to any nationality.

1. Using a micro-blogging tool like twitter/plurk to mainly announce your latest blog post when you should be using it to provide more insight to readers into your blog.
2. Blogging in the third-person perspective. Cowboy Caleb feels this is a really bad thing. Cowboy Caleb feels this is not good because it makes you seem retarded and bimbotic
3. Offering advice on how to increase your web traffic or be a better blogger despite the fact that your own traffic is pathetic.
4. Offering your readers an incomplete RSS feed that only …. [click on more to read the rest of this post on my blog]
5. Value attending blog meetups, blog events, blog outings, blog sex orgies even MORE than actual blogging anything unique and interesting that you came up with yourself.
6. Do not understand that a sentence is not a paragraph. Geddit?
7. Have terribly misleading blog post titles that are sensationalized.
8. More advertisements on your blog than actual content. Don’t be a whore.

Some background. I felt I had to write this post because the quality of local blogs has gone from bad to awful. I can hardly ever find any good local blogs to plug these days. In a way, blog advertising has caused this decline with more and more bloggers obsessed with fame and fortune instead of doing what a blogger is supposed to do in the first place - connect with their audience.

So to all of you who seem to think the success of your blog depends on which blogger you know or how many blog events you attend - you’ve got a rude surprise coming your way.

Singaporeagnestan and Jialat are 2 examples of local blogs that connect very strongly with their audience. They blog regularly, offer compelling content that’s localized and have their own opinions. While they won’t win any points for being overly brainy, these are the kind of blogs that build loyal and lasting audiences.

Compare that with the other crappy blogs that keep trying to tell you how wonderful they are, how wonderful their blog friends are and how wonderful their advertisements are. Nobody gives a shit.

reene thinks she did #1 recently. reene didn’t know how her RSS feed look like until now! reene has no blog friends, how sad! And does ‘asides’ posts count as one-liners?

Oh… And reene is currently whoring out her blog, fishing for compliments. XDDDDD

hahahahahahaha *flips over laughing*

sorry, i’m a pain in the arse. All in jest, no insult intended.

hiya,

my thoughts on some of the above points:

i. Using a micro-blogging tool like twitter/plurk to mainly announce your latest blog post when you should be using it to provide more insight to readers into your blog.
–> why the assumption that a micro blogging tool (twitter, plurk, etc) SHOULD BE used to provide more insight to blog? why the assumption that it SHOULD NOT BE an announcement service of latest blog posts?

ii. Blogging in the third-person perspective. Cowboy Caleb feels this is a really bad thing. Cowboy Caleb feels this is not good because it makes you seem retarded and bimbotic
–> what about authors of fiction who write characters in 3rd person? why the assumption that blog/blogging/blogger is necessarily non-fiction and representing the truth? what’s the difference between blog/blogging/blogger and book/writing/author/writer? note that representation is REpresentation, even of what is supposed truth or present ie REpresentation.

vi. Do not understand that a sentence is not a paragraph. Geddit?
–> why the assumption of what makes a paragraph? who lays down the rules and definitions demarcating books from paragraphs from sentences from phrases from words from articles from phonemes?

Singaporeagnestan and Jialat are 2 examples of local blogs that connect very strongly with their audience. They blog regularly, offer compelling content that’s localized and have their own opinions. While they won’t win any points for being overly brainy, these are the kind of blogs that build loyal and lasting audiences.
–> why the assumption that blogs = connection with audience?

there are obviously some assumptions at play here wrt what a (micro) blog is, what a (micro) blog is supposed to do, what writing is, what writing should do? who are the gods of this blogging/writing institution who lay down this rules, carve out these definitions on paper and screen, demarcating good and successful bloggers/blog/blogging from irritating and loser ones? because maybe just as the good and successful blogger is sniffing and thumbing his nose at the irritating and loser person who does not even qualify at blogger in his eyes, the writer who defines, distinguishes and prides himself via the same underlying iron rules, definitions and demarcations as the blogger, is likewise sniffing and thumbing his nose at the blogger who never made it as the writer. who are the gods? because the last i heard, god is dead. is he resurrecting himself in their resurrection of themselves?

then i say, rise from your grave, friedrich nietzsche.

for once you spoke my mind, cbc.

most imptly, there are blog sex orgies?

why wasnt i invited?

A sentence may not be a paragraph.

For the online medium, a single sentence as a paragraph provides for better reading off the screen.

The comment that Anne provide with those chunky paragraphs makes it quite difficult to focus on the sentences.

New Media new rules.

“The comment that Anne provide with those chunky paragraphs makes it quite difficult to focus on the sentences.”

@Deuex Payne: I think it’s a matter of proper formatting. It’s impossible to properly format your text in comment boxes which is why long comments are difficult to read. However, in a proper blog post, you have access to bolding, italicsing or other various formatting options. That’ll definitely make reading easier.

Anne <– lots of words, not much of sense. FAIL

“In a way, blog advertising has caused this decline with more and more bloggers obsessed with fame and fortune instead of doing what a blogger is supposed to do in the first place - connect with their audience.”

tats obvious -> kennysia, whore n ‘whorer’

if the blog is belongs to u n u r not writing a fake story, pls dun do number ii, disgusting

anyway, writing blog doesnt necessary mean connect with audience la, u tot singing in a concert kah

Many names springs to mind immediately although I am not at liberty to mention.

My solution is easy.

Just don’t read them anymore.

Cowboy, seems like you “shoot” lots of people already… but I dun care, keke. It is indeed my honor to be mentioned here…

I’ll have to disagree with you on your choices of blogs. If these are what passes for good in your opinion, I think I’m better off reading XX.

I’m wagering that there’s probably better content in XX’s blog than those two combined.

p.s. I don’t read XX.

not forgetting 1001 self taken portraits in one post.

rofl off topic but..
THREADLESS TEE PRINT!

review my blog, please?

fuck blogs.

totally agree with point 2: Blogging in the third-person perspective.

its so damn annoying! ooo bidarlah is so pissed today, bidarlah is really effing annoyed cos not getting —-, bidarlah is —-.

I have to say I quite like Jialat for the variety but wish he would post more opinion apart from the one-liners! Nerdgeek is right about Xiaxue’s blog. It is my guilty addiction…lol.

different people have different definitions on what blogging is about, what it pertains and what blogging is for them lah.

Maybe Plurk is too addictive that got ppl to start blogging in 3rd person? Seriously, blogging in 3rd person is even harder to write than in 1st person.

I am Barffie’s Snot That Doesn’t Give 2 Shits About What CC Have To Say Because He Looks Down on People With Pathetic Blog Hits!!!

What are your opinions about using “we” instead of the first person “I”?

I agree with point iii the most. Can’t stand those Internet Marketing “experts” that looks like they don’t even know a single line of html and yet want to sell ebooks on IM, website creation, SEO etc.

Nice post Caleb. It was these annoying blogs that I did not really want to be associated locally, thus I launched my blog overseas. But recently I have found some great local blogs too and thus I decided I would also like a local presence, so I’m back.

your blog has non content. capito?

hahahahahaa

anne pwned ccb’s post.

the art of paragraphing is very delicate. it can be a sentence it can be 5. context and flow are all it is to it. doh

Anne was trying out her new philosophy skills. Unfortunately, as mentioned by Forester: Failed to actually make any kind of sense.

You know what? I was browsing Ping.sg today to check out stuff to read and I saw the irsentosa.com (.sg) as one of the top ten most ponged posts.. And it reminded me of this post.

Namely, point vii: Have terribly misleading blog post titles that are sensationalized.

I was very close to writing something sarcastic on the fella’s blog. I don’t even bother rss-ing his stuff, which says alot cos I do have XX on my feeds, for entertainment. :)

I never get invited to blog orgies one.

mb > cause you and I are old. You more old.

that irsentosa.com post? It is big big on today’s NewPaper

eh, why u say nadia and sheylara like dat.

Well too bad. What irritates you is what pleases the hoi polloi. De gustibus non est disputandum.