Friday, March 02, 2007

The Chipster's Theory About MyBlogLog

Pour me a stiff drink. I’ve had my first comment from a real world fan! Thank you Jane, wherever and whoever you are. I'm delighted that you enjoyed the show. You have to make yourself known to me the next time you come see me perform. I’ve a complimentary thong with your name on it.

Now I’m back in Bangor, I thought it about time to take stock of my life with my blog. Jane’s comment only brought into focus my disappointment with the reality of blogging. If I performed on stage to the silence I find of the blogosphere, I don’t think the Chipster could get his shoes off, never mind the rest. And then there's all the work it takes, coming up with something new to say each day. The whole thing is a worry to me...

You know, I’m not getting any younger and I have to think about a career after the thong when my perfectly formed buttocks begin to sag. I’d hate to be still stripping in ten years time. That's why I think of alternative occupations. I enjoy writing and would like to find work crafting words, which is why keep pestering the local newspapers to see if they want any pieces of thonglateering to put next to their ads for second hand motors.

Sadly, my appeals fall on deaf ears. And I can’t help but feel disappointed that there have been far too few invites to review the papers on Sky News. The same is true of the BBC who ignore me daily. And as to the newspapers: they don’t even seem to know me. I’ve not had a single offer to write a piece for The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times… The list could go on and on.

Yet the one place where I feel like I’ve made some progress is with MyBlogLog. I subscribe to it a while ago and have found it lightens up my otherwise drab days. I enjoy nothing more than looking at the faces of some of you visitors and trying to gues what you’re all really like. I tell you that there’s a thrill to be had by looking at the picture on the Mybloglog profiles guessing what your blogs are going to be like before I see them. I’ve studied it for a few weeks now and I’m ready to reveal my conclusions.

The Seven Categories of MyBlogLog Visitor

1. The Beautiful People

Okay. We all know that I’m one of these. You can spot those of us who belong in this category because the picture on our profile shows you how bloody gorgeous we are. We’re the type of person who really knows how to communicate with our bodies and understand every commination sent out by our bodies in return. Webcams were created for those of us in this category. As were tropical beaches, which is where most of our pictures are taken. We’re also the sort of people who look straight into the camera. You’ll know too that we beautiful people usually have beautiful blogs where you can read all about our beautifully rich lives. Admit it, you hate us and love us and you want to be just like us. Bless...

2. The Charlatans

You can spot these people because they’re usually in some dynamic pose. They’ll probably be pointing at you in a ‘get off your arse’ way. These are the people who want to change you life for the better. The photo might have been taken an usual angle, full of Feng Shui. If you click on these people’s profiles, you’ll usually end up at a blog that’s promoting some sort of modern day quackery. These are the estate agents of the internet. The faith healers. The lifestyle gurus. The career consultants. The readers of the stars. In other words, these are the lowest of the low when it comes to blogging. Avoid them at all cost and never give them your credit card details. I hate to generalise but they all do strange things with animals and smell of feta cheese.

3. The Extrovert Shy

These are the people whose have their pictures taken but then go to great lengths to obscure their identity in some way. These are the people that hide behind their hands or they use Photoshop to obscure their features. Sometimes the pictures are taken in the semi darkness. These people are a mystery and their blogs are usually equally mysterious. Satanic rituals are usually involved and they don’t use any kind of blog template. Their websites are usually built from scratch, have a black background and yellow fonts and they’ve used javascript to play a tune and turn your cursor into a magician’s wand.

4. The Extrovert Extroverts

These are different to the ‘beautiful people’ in that they’re not actually beautiful. Yet in a way they are the people who are most a home with who they are. These are the people who put their passport photos on their profiles. Their blogs are usually very open about their lives but tend to get bogged down in detail about what their cat ate for breakfast. Ignore these people. They are extremely boring. Never under any circumstance give them your home address. They will visit you.

5. The Hidden

These are the freaks of the web. These are the people who hide their identities or prefer anonymity. Sometimes they create a false persona and blog from behind this veil of anonymity. You have to watch out for these people as they’ll often use a fake photograph. These are very odd people and you can’t believe a word they say on their blogs. They will lie about anything. You have been warned.

6. The Graphic Designers

These are the people who have designed their own logo. These people are creative bores with abnormally large egos. They seem to think they are so unique they need to corporate branding. Their blogs will be extremely well put together, with great visual style. Unfortunately their content shows why they are often accused of having style of substance. Usually that substance is weed which also makes for very long and dull ramblings about the nature of peace. They will often post about style sheets and tips on setting your website out in three or more columns. Don’t contact these people as they will definitely try to sell you some of their paintings.

7. The TV Bores

When you can’t think of anything else to use as a logo, steal something from the TV. That’s the mantra of these TV bores. They are very easy to spot because they’ll have stole a picture from The Simpsons and will be going around the web claiming to Police Chief Wiggum. These are the bloggers that usually bring nothing new or original to the blogosphere. They believe that to blog successfully you must rehash what they find on other blogs. Their sites usually contain nothing but the reposted scrapings of Youtube. Don’t visit their blogs unless you want to see videos of people getting injured, dogs attacking TVs, or long 'funny' clips of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings intercut with scenes from the original Star Trek.

10 comments:

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Welcome back. You don't seem very keen on MyBlogLog do you!

Big Chip Dale said...

It's not that bad but I've noticed it's getting full of people wanting to sell me the perfect life. I want to find the blogs of real people. Not some health product of pseudo psychological crap about the stars and pyramids.

PS. Welcome back too, Jeremy. And well done!

rilly super said...

category number 5 sounds scary. I should stay clear of them Chip. I've hardly worked out how to use blogger yet so I hope you and your thong don't desert us luddites for mybloglogland just yet

Big Chip Dale said...

Category 5 are almost as frightening as the eighth category which I didn't list. That's for people who don't have a photo attached to their blogger or MyBlogLog account...

Shades said...

You don't mention the non-beautiful people like Jeremy & myself who are category ones otherwise but don't give a shit about our body image (or have given up the battle). Or maybe we are the psycho types who will visit your home...

Sorry to rope you into this Jeremy!

Big Chip Dale said...

Should I just maintain a diplomatic silence and let you work out where you fit in my categories between yourselves? I suspect that the background of Jeremy's picture is actually a sandy beach somewhere in the Caribbean, which makes him category 1 material. I'm not sure the same can be said about a pair of headphones, Ian.

Shades said...

Jeremy's sandy beach is in Jessops.

I wasn't wearing my really expensive headphones, the ones Mrs. Greyster glowers at me about..

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Potters Bar actually

Mutterings and Meanderings said...

eighth category which I didn't list. That's for people who don't have a photo attached to their blogger or MyBlogLog account... that'll be me then...

What about the people who put someone else's head on someone else's shoudlers?

Big Chip Dale said...

Mutterings, that would be category 5 or 'The Hidden'.

As I said, 'They’ll often use a fake photograph. These are very odd people and you can’t believe a word they say on their blogs. They will lie about anything. You have been warned.'

I agree that those people who put other people's face on other people's bodies are the most devious and should be avoided at all cost. I try to have as little to do with them as possible.