Friday, May 20, 2011

FBFF for May 20th: Haters Gonna Hate


According to Katy of Modly Chic, this week’s FBFF topic “was inspired by a post by Beautifully Invisible from a couple weeks ago entitled ‘The 10 things that drive me crazy about your blog.’”  To that end, we were challenged with listing five things that drive us crazy about the blogs we visit.

I have to tell you, Dearest Readers, that I struggled with this subject.  A lot.  I even considered not doing an FBFF post at all this week because I actually find this topic to be vaguely offensive; albeit in a way I’m not sure I can articulate.  However, I’ll give it my best shot.

I find writing about how someone’s blog irritates you to be akin to commenting that you don’t like someone’s style or blog or face.  It’s rude.  If you don’t like it, you don’t have to visit and it’s as simple as that.  Saying you won’t visit/follow someone’s blog because they don’t have a Twitter account seems ridiculous to me.  I do understand some of the pet peeves – music playing automatically, for example, can be disruptive.  But other issues people have with someone else’s blog seem to be so very subjective.  Just because you offer 17 different ways to share a post doesn’t mean you can reasonably expect that of another blogger.

If it's your goal to make it easy to share a post, that's wonderful.  But you can't expect that to be a goal of every blogger.  We all blog for different reasons.  Not everyone who blogs is looking to be a BLOGGER.  Some of us just want to be bloggers, meandering along in our own small corner of the blogosphere, not worrying about becoming Modcloth’s Blogger of the Moment.  We don’t all set out to rule the Web and our goals for our blogs may not include thousands of followers or our every post being Tweeted and re-Tweeted across the globe.

My blog is personal.  I started my blog for myself and not for anybody else.  I love my readers and think you all make blogging that much better, but if my sister was my only follower (I think her following is mandatory), I'd still blog.  Therefore, I created my blog in a way that I'm comfortable with and that reflects my personality.  In truth, I’m not especially technologically savvy, I'm a terrible photographer (as you may have noticed)  and I'm not a fan of social media.   I’m comfortable with those truths and I’m comfortable with my blog reflecting those truths. 

I would like people to enjoy visiting my blog not because I make it easy to Tweet about a post, but because what I write or wear is interesting to them.  Or because they like my smile.  Or my sense of humor.  And if it’s not interesting, or funny, or you find my lack of a Twitter name (handle?) irritating, I’m okay if you don’t read it.

I know it seems counterintuitive to say that blogs are personal when everyone and their mom can read them, but I view my blog as something personal that is produced for public consumption.  And even though the public is the consumer I’m not convinced that means the public should have a say.  Like art, you can hate it and you can even say that you hate it but you shouldn't expect that the artist will stop creating or begin creating in a way that is more pleasing to you and your particular sensibilities.  So, why waste your breath hating?

If you, or your mom, would like to read some less rant-y, probably better-written posts about this week's topic, please do stop by Modly Chic for a list of participants.

Gracey

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