Warning: reading this post is most certainly a waste of your time, and if you decide to compute your "Blog Cheesiness Factor" that I just made up, don't complain that this was a complete waste of time. As a Friday night blogging topic, I'm just granting myself the excuse that it's been a long week, and that it is OK.
Susan points to an entry on lindsayism.com that "calls out the cheesy stuff that bloggers do".
Last night I was reading one of my issues of Might Magazine, specifically Might #7: the Cheese Issue, and I realized that blogs didn't really exist then, but there's a lot of Blog Cheese out there. You know, the tired cliches, tackiness, presumption, bragging, self-indulgence or just proving you have your head so far up your ass your blog is technically a travel blog.
Just off the top of my head (and I've been guilty of so many of these so I'm not making fun of anyone, seriously. Seriously, if you see yourself here, you see me and pretty much every other blogger - I used my own site for inspiration!).
Most of these are just cliches...
Because some of those "cheesy thingies" are classic, I decided to compute a "Blog Cheesiness Factor" for my two blogs: this one, and my photoblog. The BCF is defined as Sum (cheesy things you do on your blogs) - Sum (cheesy things you have not done on your blogs). Going through that profond self examination requires a good 15 minutes and complete honesty. Don't say that you did do something you didn't do, and vice versa. Oh, and things in this list you did in the last five minutes don't count.
Things I do/did:
* Linking to the people you hung out with last night.
* Linking to the famous people you hung out with last night.
* Photos of you and your friends having fun last night.
* Photos of you having fun with famous people last night.
* Blogging drunk.
* Taking someone off your blogroll because they piss you off.
* Introducing people at a party by their blog name. Am appealling on this one, it is their identity!
* Having your picture on your index page.
* Posting pictures you took of people without asking their permission.
* Blogging about your kid.
* Being "recognized."
* Having stupid commenters. Happened to me when I blogged about Pud. Turned off comments on that post.
* Having sycophantic commenters. See above.
* Having, going to, or blogging about any sort of "blogger get-together", "blogger party" or "blogger bash."
* Having a "guest blogger."
* Friendster. Dodgeball. Flickr. Myspace. Buzznet. LinkedIn. Tribe. Ryze. bla-bla-blah
* Linking to your own press.
* Plugging your friend's stuff. I plug if it is good, and disclose the relationship.
* Blogging about search terms that brought people to your site.
* Starting a post with, "Everyone in the blogosphere has been buzzing about..."
* Saying "blogosphere." Ever. Even ironically.
* Referring to any blogger as "famous."
* Posting pictures that you've taken of your TV. One of my first test pictures on my Photoblog, does that count ?
* Blogging about weight gain / weight loss / gym membership / ice-cream binges.
And, finally...
* Blogging about blogging.Plus my personal additions:
* Reading your ego-feeds first.
* Checking your blog/feed/referrer traffic more than once a day.
* Blogging posts like "I love my XXXX", XXXX being any electronic, kitchen, gardening or automobile gear.
* Having a feeling of deep loneliness when your traffic is 50% below average.
* Mentally setting an expectation as to when the first comment on a post or picture will be posted.
* Desperately trying to find something to blog about, just because you have not for a while and your traffic has been in constant decline for the past X weeks.
* Actually wasting my time calculating my BCF.
* Not only wasting my time calculating my BCF, AND blogging about it.
* NEW: Posting way too late/tired, and going "WTF did I mean/write/disclose ?" the next morning.
Note that as a photoblogger, many of these "sins" come with the territory. When you meet someone well known (like Fleury, Le Meur, Scoble), you take pictures, and you... link to them. Likewise, when you meet a bunch on bloggers or photobloggers, you agree on a common tag and you upload!
Things I have not done (yet):
* Posting solely to wish a friend happy birthday.
* Linking to something on another site and bragging that you "helped."
* Blogging about the stupid ideas you got when you smoked pot and watched reality TV last night.
* Having a regular feature on your blog about the ideas you get when you smoke pot.
* Blogging about George W.Bush.
* Blogging about the epiphany you had last night about yourself and your life.
* Posting your results from online personality tests.
* Participating in any blogging "meme" ("Write down the first three venereal diseases that pop into your head.")
* Using the word "meme."
* Blogging about how it's been so long since you've dated/had sex and how you don't care.
* Blogging about natural disasters and pointing out how terrible they are for the people involved.
* Blogging about Coachella.
* Going to Coachella.
* Going to a "secret show" and blogging about it the next day. ("It was so hard to keep the secret, but Julian made me pinkie-swear.")
* Blog "feuds."
* Having an anonymous blog.
* "Coming out" from your anonymous blog.
* Going on "hiatus."
* Coming back from "hiatus."
* The use, ever, of the term "guest list."
* Blogging about your trip to (Prague, Costa Rica, Iceland.)
* Having a blog that never links to anything except your friends blogs that don't link to anything except their friend's blogs, etc.
* Posting anything that requires a "jump."
* Posting a year-end best-of list.
* Apologizing for not posting your year-end best-of list sooner.
* Apologizing for not blogging for a while.
* Apologizing for not blogging for a while because "things have been crazy - I can't talk about it yet but suffice it to say, I've already mentally spent the advance money, lol!"
* Talking about how much you love Tivo/DVR.
* Calling Tivo/DVR "My new boyfriend."
* Putting your iPOD on random and posting the songs it plays.
* Posting anything about your iPOD.
* Posting about things you've recently purchased.
* Posting about things you've recently received. ("Random House sent me a copy of the new David Foster Wallace...")
* Blogging about hipsters or the LES.
* Inventing a nickname for your significant other that you use only on your blog. ("Last night, The Asspounder and I had dinner at a cute little place in the West Village...")
* Inventing nicknames for all your friends on your blog. ("Last night, GirlySue, Desperatina, and the rest of the Tribe went out for decadent deserts to commisserate about how there are no good men out there.")
* Blogging about the restaurants and bars you frequent.
* Blogging from a restaurant or bar.
* Blogging about your dates.
* Blogging about your sexual tastes/prowess/activities of the last evening.
* Posting IM conversations.
* Making fun of how the New York Times is always behind on every trend.
* Having advertisers.
* Not having advertisers for a spelled-out reason (ie, any other reason than just being lazy, not caring.)
* Blogging about how much traffic you've gotten since you received a link from a much bigger blog.
* Blogging about how much traffic you've gotten since you received a link from a much bigger blog, and saying "Welcome (much bigger blog) readers!"
* Writing to someone to ask if you can link to them.
* Blogging drunk about how you shouldn't/never blog drunk.
* "Cryptic" blogging to seem mysterious.
* "Cryptic" blogging to send a secret message to someone.
* "Cryptic" blogging to seem cool. ("I can't really say anything about this right now, but big important things are happening to someone we all know.")
* Having entries in your cellphone like "Mark Whatevs" and "Foxy Jess"
* Having a "pictures of me" page.
* Having a "pictures of me" page where all the pictures are clearly self-portraits.
* Saying "I was approached by _______ who wanted me to post about _______"
* Blogging about your breakup.
* Blogging about your engagement.
* Blogging about being "recognized."
* Blogging about compliments you've gotten.
* Mentioning the amount of traffic you get.
* Mentioning the exact number of readers you have per day.
* Taking down all comments that aren't gushing about how wonderful you are.
* Blogging about how work sucks.
* Blogging about your pet.
* Blogging about the blogging award you got/were nominated for.
* Blogging about how drunk you got last night.
* Taking down all comments that aren't gushing about how wonderful you are.
* Blogging about how work sucks.
* Blogging about your pet.
* Blogging about the blogging award you got/were nominated for.
* Blogging about how drunk you got last night.
* Having a wishlist or asking for donations.
* Writing "I've been listening to (hip band's new album) for weeks and it's so great, it comes out today and you should pick it up."
* Not linking to your own press, but referring "cryptically" to it and mentioning how everyone else is linking to it and musing about how you "don't see what the big deal is."
* Accusing someone of stealing an idea from your blog even if it's the most commonplace, obvious joke about a situation that can be made.
* Blogging in the first-person plural.
* Posting song lyrics.
* Blogging previews. ("I'm going to watch "PoweRGirls" tonight; check back here tomorrow and I'll tell you what I thought about it.")
* Plugging your friend's stuff that sucks, and not specifically saying it's good. "You should all buy my friend's band Mouthfeel's new record."
* Posting about an event instead of going to it. ("Unfortunately I can't make it, but you should all go see my friend read from his book about growing up in the suburbs.").
* Blogging about your bad mood/bad day/general ennui.
* Confronting someone at a party because they don't link to you.
So where does that leave us: 34 - 82 = -48.
What does that mean ? Nothing, besides that I have done less "sins" than I potentially could have!
I did tell you it was a waste of time, didn't I.
Tip: to avoid a painful counting exercise, copy each list separately and paste them in your favorite spreadsheet, it will do the Math for you.
Jeff, forgive me, I've used the word "blogosphere" sans irony! My fromage factor is unbelievable. --Steven
Posted by: Steven Phenix | March 12, 2005 at 06:38 PM
You know what would be really cool? What if you created a bot that indexed all the blogs and rated them on posting song lyrics, rating their moods, drunkeness, crypticness,etc and then awarded said blog the "Cheesiest Blog in the Blogosphere?" prize?
Posted by: Steven Phenix | March 13, 2005 at 12:07 AM