- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
I Am No Longer A 'Blogger'
I am no longer a 'blogger.'
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm still going to write these little riffs. I'm just not going to be a "blogger." To be honest, I've never particularly liked that word.
The word "blog" has always reminded me of that one night back in the fall of 1989 when during a personal tribute to the passing of St. Louis brewery patriarch Gussie Busch, I consumed too many A-B products.
I was attempting to partake in one of every brew made by Anheuser-Busch. In case you didn't realize this, that brewery makes a whole lot of different products.
I blogged a couple of times that night. And the hangover the next morning was horrendous.
While I've never been a big fan of the word "blogger," I've tolerated it. After all, my big old head appears on this website under a category that says "Latest Blogs." By default that makes me a blogger, right?
So, a few months ago I published a blog on how to write a blog. I suppose that could be considered a wee bit narcissistic if I hadn't written it in jest. Anyhow, one of the comments I got regarding that particular blog was from a poster with the screen name of CapeCounty. The poster said:
The first thing you have to do in order to be a successful blogger is that you have to be a huge whiner, sarcastic, egomaniac, condescending, close minded bully. You really don't need to take any courses to find this out. Just read the blogs on SEMissourian. Granted this is a minority of the bloggers but they think they speak for the majority. I think they should teach or push for bloggers to state their real name and not a login name in these clsees. Then we would see how opinionated they are. That would be great!
My first thought after reading the first sentence was, "Wow! When did I wee in his Wheaties?"
Oh sure, it was definitely possible that I had yanked the tail of a 'sacred cow' that that poster held near and dear to his heart. I can also certainly whine when I need to, and I have been known to be a wee-bit sarcastic at times, although I don't think I'm an egomaniac, condescending or close-minded. I have my opinion and you have yours and in the grand scheme of things neither really matter. Sad but true.
But then it occurred to me upon reading the entire post, that CapeCounty was likely talking about other posters who make comments on our website behind anonymous screen names.
None of this website's regular bloggers are anonymous. Those are the ones whose actual mug shots and actual names run along with their writing. There are a few exceptions where the writers have used images of their subject matter rather than of themselves, but they're the minority.
However, all of the "bloggers" who post comments to stories and the named blogger's entries are essentially anonymous, writing posts using their particular screen names. I call them "posters."
Anyhow, I've read some of the poster's comments where they complement one another on a "good blog." Sometimes these comments are very well written rebuttals to something that has appeared on our website. I've even had a few comments from posters about my blogs that were actually longer than the blog I had written in the first place. Hard to believe since I can sometimes be pretty long winded.
But are they really a "blog" if you don't post your name? Should "blogger" be synonymous for a "poster?"
Personally, I don't think so. I think there is a difference between writing a blog branded with your name and your picture versus writing a post with a nom de plume.
However, I realize that I am in the minority. The term "blog" and "blogger" has become ubiquitous for ANY opinion or continuing commentary or topic discussion that appears on the Internet.
From the lady who decided to cook every recipe from Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and write about it on the web to practically every celebrity documenting the minutiae of their day for excited fans to the anonymous poster on this website chastising other posters on the same website for being overly-outspoken because of their anonymity, they're all considered bloggers.
And I realize that what I think is not going to change that.
But nobody says I have to like it. As I said, I never liked the word "blog" or "blogger," but what would be a good name to call these riffs that I write?
So I thought about it.
Months went by.
No kidding. I actually wrote most of this blog in October, but was stumped for a solution to this problem.
And then the other night while attending an RPM cycling class at Healthpoint Fitness where task-master Geoff was making us sweat our butts off, the answer came to me.
A lot of my blogs tend to take the opposite view of The Establishment. There's a lot of dumb stuff that is done in the name of "The Greater Good" and I like to point out that it is dumb and why it is dumb. Personally, I think it's fun to tweak the nose of The Man even though The Man doesn't find it funny.
I also have a fondness for acronyms partly because The Establishment seems to have a love of them as well. It appears to me that governments and institutions often spend more time coming up with a clever-sounding acronym rather than a truly viable solution to the problem the acronym's program is meant to be solving.
Remember T.A.R.P.? Now, that was a great solution. Yeah, right.
So anyhow, these two facts about this "blog" and myself collided and the answer I'd been mulling about for months came to me in a flash.
I can now say that I am no longer a blogger.
I am now Brad Insulting The Conventional Hierarchy.
Being known as a bitcher just seems more appropriate.
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