Why I Hate ‘Personal Blogs’ by Nick Bryans
Here is a picture someone blogged of their lunch. Why? God only knows.
I love blogs. Love them. I love them more than newspapers. There are certain blogs which I’ll read every day. However, one thing these blogs have in common is that they are about something. Whether it is politics, media, comedy or anything else, they are all interesting blogs written by interesting people on interesting subjects. And I love them.
However, this only accounts for half of the ‘blogosphere’. For every enthralling read, there are blogs which are so mundane and asinine that it makes me want to cancel my internet connection and throw my laptop in the bin. These are known as ‘personal blogs’.
Personal blogs are essentially a collection of the daily thoughts and activities of general members of the public. More often than not, boring members of the public. More often than not, mind-numbingly boring members of the public. They act as online journals, only without all the juicy stuff you put in journals which made ‘stolen diaries’ the plot to many an episode of an arbitrary 90s teen-sitcom.
When interesting people blog about their lives, it can be a great read, hence the size of the autobiography market. But when people without interesting lives do it, you sometimes feel like you’re reading a Viz parody. There was a story this week in the Guardian about the rise of ‘couple blogging’; personal blogs where one dull person ropes their equally dull partner into typing up their dull activities for the entire world to enjoy. It’s basically a chance for middle class people to wax lyrical about their fantastic social life and fantastic hip tastes. Only it’s not fantastic. None of it is.
One of the blogs highlighted was ‘Louder than Silence’, a blog by Ross and Sally, two London-ites who blog about their daily activities from going to work to deciding outfits for the day. Now, I should add, part of me still thinks this is a parody. The sceptical part of my mind doesn’t believe that two people could possibly believe that ‘Louder than Silence’ is a good idea.
Ross and Sally chronicle their lives to immense detail. Everything is blogged and photographed for your enjoyment. Here’s an average day round Chez Louder, June 15th, entitled Cards and Cocktails.
After a raucous Friday night spent in and around Brick Lane where we watched Ross’s mates INTL, we laid low for much of the weekend. Cleaning the house in our underpants, making the most delicious patatas bravas, watching awesome films; you know, usual weekend fodder.
Come Sunday afternoon, boredom had set in so we got our glad rags on to play cards whilst sipping some homemade spiked smoothies (vodka, blueberries, raspberries and orange juice whizzed in a hand blender), before heading to our friend’s house for wine, dinner and a game of darts whilst listening to motown records. It was fun.
I was wearing an old favourite dress I’ve had for a good few years – arguably the best £3 I’ve ever spent. Ross was looking his usual dapper self in a shirt that can only be described as ‘deckchair chic’. We matched our footwear for a unifying look*.
Hope you all had a fun weekend ladies and gents, get up to owt nice? x
*I lie. We just both have great taste in tasselled loafers, natch.
I wore: vintage dress & bag, New Look loafers, c/o Wallpaper Rose necklace
Ross wore: M&S shirt, c/o Bertie shoes, Topman jeans, H&M belt
I don’t know what I love most about this. Is it the picture of the matching tassel shoes? Ross’ outfit described a ‘Deck-Chair chic’? The horrendously uncomfortable photo on the street of their outfits? Yes, it’s the photo of the outfits. Imagine walking past and seeing the two of them, one hunched over their iPhone whilst the other tries to pretend the camera isn’t there, taking snaps of each other. ‘That’s it; frill the skirt, look demure, pretend the camera isn’t here. C’mon, we need a horrendously twee photo to blog later’.
I can’t get my head round it. They label themselves as some sort of new age and hip thinkers, despite them being a pastiche of hipster berks. Take the outfits, for example. They seem to think they are loafer-wearing fashionistas, irrespective of the fact that their outfits have been assembled entirely from high street stores. I don’t look at mannequins in TopMan windows and think; ‘fuck, wish this new age, demure specimen kept a blog. I’d love to read that.’ And the photos are similarly irksome. Take this for example:
This is a photo of Camden. Camden. The highly undocumented and under exposed area of ‘Camden Town, North London’. Taken with an iPhone. With instagram. This isn’t Mario Testino. This is someone with an iPhone. A fucking iPhone. Couldn’t even invest in a half decent camera, just downloaded some soppy app to make their photos look vintage ‘n shit. What you have here isn’t retro-fashionistas or new age thinkers, you have someone with a iPhone and a penchant for high street fashion. If you wish to meet people like this, just walk into the centre of any city in Britain. Any. They have the mind set of intrepid travellers who wear Llama ponchos in the wilds of Boliva, but with a phobia of purchasing anything unavailable in a provincial shopping mall.
You might think that I have judged these people wrong, but then you read this:
“We’d like to report that we uncovered all sorts of vintage goodies but, if truth be told, we weren’t really in the mood for rummaging (possibly something to do with the vast amount of cocktails we drank on Friday night – must try to remember that buy one get one free does not mean you have to drink double the amount you usually would), so the only thing we actually bought was some homemade hot chilli sauce. And a mahoosive lunch from The Diner to help recover from said cocktails.”
And see this:
And this:
And all doubt you may have had that these two weren’t complete tools of the highest order is quickly extinguished.
But Ross and Laura are merely the face for this self-absorbed nonsense. There are swathes of people that run personal blogs, with some talking about how great their mundane lives are, and others talking about how unequivocally terrible their mundane lives are. You have a website like Tumblr for example, which appears to be solely devoted to myopic ranting about people’s own lives, whilst at no point does anything resembling anything interesting.
Now I know what you will say; if you don’t like it, don’t read it. And yes, that’s fine. I plan to spend very little time reading about these people’s lives. But like the Daily Mail, I can still never read it and yet feel nothing but contempt when I hear the slightest mention of the publication.
People can do what they want, it’s fine. I just don’t get it. I don’t get the urge we have as a population to make every little detail about our lives public. Why? Why do it? I live a very normal life. I go to work. I dislike being at work. Then I might go to the gym, or the pub. Then I’ll annoy my girlfriend for a bit. On a weekend, I might play a football match. Or be hungover. If at any point on a weekend I get dressed, it’s a bonus. But my life’s ok. I’m quite content. And at no point do I empty my washing into the machine on a Saturday, hungover and wearing Christmas present underwear, and think ‘Fuck, people round the world need to hear about this’. I don’t. Because it’s boring. Yet, this doesn’t stop throngs of the populations from doing the same. Posts on personal blogs range from such things as ‘I just got a haircut (with photo)’ to ‘sitting in bed reading. Yay!’. I don’t get it. I don’t get the mindset behind it. So much of modern social media confuses me. Personal blogs – to tell people everything going on in my life. 4Square – for people to know exactly where I am at all times. Facebook – for people to see all my photos and all my contact information. One of the greatest fears fears for society used to be ‘big brother’ style enchroachemnt into people’s lives. Now, these same people are chasing others down the street, desperate to tell you what they just ate for lunch. It’s no-one’s business what I’m doing. And on the same note, why are these people arrogant enough to assume that others are rushing home and turning on their PC’s to find out what bloggers are having in their sandwiches?
I can only think that the point of these personal blogs is some desperate attempt for people to be idolized by others, and garner a sycophantic, mawkish following. So much of TV has a reality edge, and so much of modern social media involves gaining friends and followers. This desire for fame permeates every area of society, and as much as people wish to deride it, it is all they seem to want.
All personal bloggers are fine and never harm anyone, and if I don’t like it, I don’t have to read it. But I question why people start them. If your life is so perfect, while do you feel the need to seek reassurance from a national audience? Ross and Sally are probably very much in love and enjoy every minute they spend with each other. So why chronicle it? Why not just enjoy the moment together for yourselves, rather than turn it into an artificial and forced photo opportunity? Maybe I’m more private than others, but I just do not see why one has to present their lives to be judged by the world, and why they can’t just enjoy those special moments in privacy, rather than seek ratification from baying crowds. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I hate personal blogs.
It's a bike, innit. But, like, looking all old 'n shit. Awesome Wells.
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© 2012
Look at the above website.
She’s photographed what she’s worn EVERY DAY FOR FOUR YEARS.
FOR FOUR YEARS.
Oh and the matching-shoe bastards can fuck off too.
I have to admit that ‘personal blogs’ are kind of my guilty pleasure. I like to think of it as voyeurism for the incredibly lazy. If you think Ross and Sally are bad, try Rockstar Diaries. As ever, the Americans win again.
Just to be that guy, you put “Ross and Sally” a bunch of times but then put “Ross and Laura” just the once? Totally agree with the post though.
Just the use of the words ‘Mahoosive’ and ‘natch’ had me reaching for the claw hammer. Still it could be worse, they could be a pair of fucking triathletes wanking off about ‘brick sessions’ and chaffing
Fuck.
I’m never writing on my personal blog again for fear of the rage of Bryans.
I joke of course – as my ‘personal’ blog is for the articles I deem too good/shit/rejected for Cows.
I agree with everything you’ve put here mate.
“Right, look twee. Now, I’ll take it sepia. NO DON’T LOOK AT ME YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT YOU’LL SPOIL THE ILLUSION OF ARTISTIC MERIT”
http://whatiwore.tumblr.com/private/6528623014/tumblr_lmsoig4Sib1qz9o5z
Sorry, this is the website I was talking about.
I couldn’t post properly what with being incandescent with rage.
Personal blogs, the original ones from around 1997 or thereabouts, were a combination of therapeutic rants and anonymous diaries. For many writers their personal blogs were an outpouring of sarcasm, a cry against an injustice and/or a rage on a variety of free-range topics. See Little Red Boat, Petite Anglaise, http://jonnybillericay.blogspot.com/ and http://fictionrus.blogspot.com. Unfortunately anonymity didn’t always work and some authors, Petite Anglaise and FictionrUs were outed and lost their jobs.
Personal blogs, in this respect, bear little relation to the sickly, vomit-inducing, blog of anodyne content you’ve chosen to highlight.
Screw you. I demand you read my personal blog. I only update it once every seven minutes, with photos of what I’ve been doing for the last eight minutes.
I do it that way so my posts will always have some continuity, sort of like a synopsis so you can keep up with my terribly busy, glamourous and vigorous life.
None of it has anything at all to do with self worth or fulfilling my sense of personal importance and I will pointedly and passive-aggressively ignore anyone who says it is.
Besides, even the prose I write here shows what a fine writer, why wouldn’t you want to read it?
Indeed.
I opened a blogging account last month with the intention of writing frequently, not for reassurance but just as a means of improving my writing skills and inviting criticism.
I still haven’t made a single entry for the reason that no one will be interested. I can amuse myself with putting my own spin on my dreary day but it’s still a dreary day to everyone else and what might have made me giggle me on Tuesday may no longer make me giggle on Friday.
However i’ve just this second thought up a way around it. If one is intending to write a blog post, first type it all out in notepad and save. Then come back and read it 2 days later; if it’s no longer amusing/interesting to you then drag to recycle bin. If you think it’ll make someone differet smile, then upload it.
More annoying than personal blogs though, are ‘preacher’ blogs. Those ones who claim to have found the meaning of life or a way of thinking which makes them better than you and out of the goodness of their heart they will share their visions with the great unwashed.
There are lots of them out there, normally with some stupid title for their philosophies which includes part of their name just so that when there’s a Church dedicated to them Terry is deitified and not June.
Personal blogging in comparison, is welcome.
I too hate this sort of ridiculous shite.
Chief amongst the cocks is that bloody What Katie Wore bint with her horrendous dress sense and horrific ‘fashion’ blog http://whatkatiewore.com.
When I set up http://whatjontywore.com to take the piss, I was the recipient of rage laden emails and comments about what all round super people Katie and Joe were and what a massive loser I must obviously be to not get it.
Those emails have been archived. They are a source of comfort.
I blame the parents.
What’s perhaps even worse is the desire of so many people to post comments, like anyone really wants to hear their opinion. Often, a badly informed, badly written opinion, too.
Oh the irony.
It’s the age of TMI. People nowadays should learn when to shut up and proclaim to the world what they’re doing.