So…a question.
Who are you when you blog?
Are you you, or are you how you want others to see you?
Who do you blog FOR? (yeah, I know, that’s three questions, so deal with it).
When I decided to start this here blogging gig again, I spent altogether too much time deciding who I was going to be. I had a blog a year or two ago, and it kind of ran out of steam. In hindsight? I think it dwindled and became a chore because I wasn’t being me (it still pisses me off that it wasn’t backed up in the right format to import here though. I AM an idiot).
I pondered, should my blogging persona be the sweet and motherly type? The psychotic axe murderer type? Would anyone like me? All of which sounds very I’m-6-years-old-and-must-fit-in-with-the-other-kids. Rather than I’m-just-a-freaking-fruitcake nutjob-with-a-blog and absolutely, totally lame.
Then, I read a bit about blogging and got all concerned with the “identify your brand, and decide upon your niche” stuff. What? You mean I can’t just register a domain name and write about my life (or lack thereof)? And just stuff? Rants? I have to market myself as well? It was all getting to be too much like hard work - I don’t like hard work, and I don’t like to think. Well, not often anyway. You may have noticed.
Blogging seems so involved now. SEO, Twitter, Plurk, Adsense, Stumbleupon, Technorati, people sweating over their Alexa and Feedburner ratings/subscribers, why you should monetise your blog, why you shouldn’t monetise your blog, how to triple your readers in 47.5 seconds, join this, do that, put this in your sidebar, monitor that…fuck!!! Settle down people!! How the hell do people enjoy blogging when they seem to spend half their time doing their heads in over what they should do, or not do with their blog? Panicking because another blog has a particular feature, and OMG, maybe I should too then? It’s NOT high school for fucks sake! Who gives a shit?
My biggest decision when I decided to blog again was whether or not to swear when I blogged, because I swear in real life. Not AT my two spawn, although there are times when I TOTALLY want to - and possibly should, but when screaming at talking to the MOTH, I have been known to drop the F-bomb. I don’t swear at work, but while there I swear in my head (sometimes). One word I have never uttered either out loud, or in the vast expanse of nothingness that is my mind though, is the “C” word. Just can’t quite come at that one. So to speak.
But really, when I am insanely angry, or feeling forceful, or need to get a point across, I do find there is nothing like a good fuck. The word, not the act. Although…
I decided in the end, just to be as much like me as I can. So that’s what I’m doing. Like it or not.
Incidentally, if you go here you can have your blog personality analysed. So go and do it. Now. I’m not meme’ing you, I’m just saying.
Your Personality Assessment
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage.
Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
Accurate much?
Anyway, help me make sense of it all. What do you think of this whole blogging thing. Are you a panicker, or do just blog for your own personal satisfaction?
