if anyone has noticed, there seems to be a wave of old-time bloggers shutting down their blogs recently.
sad to say, quite a number of them are blogs that i read regularly.
i used to remember a time, not very long ago, where there were only a handful of people whom i knew were blogging. although lacking in quantity, most of these blogs were interesting, down to earth or, at the very least, worth someone’s time.
i don’t know when, or how, it happened. from a relatively obscure activity/hobby, blogging suddenly become the most talked-about “in” thing in town. everyone, who was anyone, started logging onto the internet and established their own blogs. from there, this phenomenon quickly developed into an unstoppable tidal wave - blog aggregators, blog advertisements… all types of blog “accessories”. you name it, someone has invented it.
and it didn’t stop there.
from being a pure leisure activity/hobby, blogging soon evolved into a money-generating tool with the popularization of blog ads. most of the blog ad mechanisms work on the general principal, as below:
the higher the traffic volume for blog = the more blog ad income for blog owner.
under such a mechanism, it will only make economic sense for the financially-motivated blog owner to try to increase the volume of traffic to his/her blog.
how? - is the next question.
now, that’s an easy question. what are people most interested in?
ans: sex. that’s why we have the saying - “sex sells’.
enter the proliferation of blog entries with sex-related titles.
coupled with the rise of blog aggregators, blog entries with such sexual innuendo quickly raised to the top of the most popular charts, once again proving the old adage.
sexual innuendo aside, these blog entries don’t even have any content - at all! some post links to websites of questionable nature, some are just pure lame nonsense…the list goes on. the contraversial titles are just baits to lure readers into clicking through and entering their blog sites to prop up traffic volume.
i’m not even saying that the quality of blogs has gone down.
what quality?!
although i’m not the ah kong of singapore blogs, like mrbrown, nor did i popularize blogging, like xiaxue. but i’ve been blogging for a relatively long time…from the time when people went “blog? what’s that?” to them going “oh yar, i’m a blogger too!”
i started blogging to find an outlet for things that i couldn’t express verbally, especially when my feelings were in a turmoil or going topsy turvey on me and words seemed to be the most effective way for me to express how i feel or vent those frustrations.
i didn’t want to tell people i had an online diary, right in the beginning, because i didn’t want to share that inner world - where i wrote down my honest, naked feelings under an anonymous guise. slowly, i begun to realize that there was a handful of others who were the same way, who expressed their thoughts and feelings in words.
it was refreshing to be able to share thoughts or opinions with them, without fear of being judged since we were all veiled by the internet. as these like-minded people got to know each other better, being anonymous no longer seemed that important. blogging had seemed to be a more-or-less accepted norm, abeit being a lesser known activity. it was good that way.
however, with the recent developments (or should i say “degradation”) in this area, the thought of uttering the word “blogger” rings so fake in my ears. blogging has turned into a fad…one that many people follow mindlessly, or do just for the sake of making money, trying to become famous etc.
blogging has gone to the dogs.
of course, this does not apply to everyone who blogs. there are still those who stick by their guns and blog on maintaining their own integrity or objectives. these, i admire and respect.
how can we return to a simpler time - where blogging was merely a true reflection or expression of how one feels?
