My thoughts on…blogger profiles
I’ve been to almost every corner of the blogosphere, and visited nearly every blog worth visiting, and I have put them into four groups. You have the super blogs that rank in the top 1% of the blogosphere and have readers in the thousands, like Problogger and Slashdot, the big blogs like like Mystikal Incense that have less influence in the blogosphere than the super blogs, but influence nonetheless, the small blogs, such as mine, with only a handful of readers and little influence, and finally the wannablogs, like most MySpace blogs, that have no influence, poor construction and mediocre content. But all these blogs have one thing in common: the blogger profile. The blogger profile describes the blogger’s likes, dislikes, personality traits, etc, and is one of the means by which readers connect on a personal level with the blogger. Such a connection is crucial for maintaining regular readership. A well written blogger profile should be a reflection of the blogger’s writing style.
I have noticed that there are certain trends in blogger profiles. Apparently, most bloggers belong in an insane asylum, because most of them claim to suffer from insanity, schizophrenia or some other mental disorder. Most female bloggers profess themselves to be bitches, badasses and/or mothers, which begs the question, just how truthful are blogger profiles anyway? The Internet offers a great deal of anonymity, and a blogger might be tempted to create a persona that isn’t exactly true to life. So a guy that claims to be a foul-mouthed, overly tattooed rebel on his blog may just be the guy at the copy machine at work that nobody talks to. So how can we ensure that the blog profiles we read are truthful? We can’t. We just have to trust the bloggers to be who they claim to be.
A few bloggers have turned out to be hoaxes.
There was one who had claimed to be a leukaemic on chemotherapy. What got me is how he was supposed to be on all these high powered drugs, and as ill as he said he was, he still found the energy to be blogging from a laptop in his bed in hospital. He eventually disappeared from the net when he was challenged.
Wow. What a story!
Hear hear … lovely analysis of our blogging communities … Would love to have you do a guest blog spot on my BLog Writing Tips blog (www.blogcharm.com/blogwritingtips). Let me know!
I actually don’t read a lot of profiles so I’m gonna start checking those out! You can usually tell what the person is like by reading their blog.
Leon, let me know what kinda look you want if you want me to redesign. I’ll try to come up with something which I think will fit your blog/personality, etc and let me know what you think of that, too.
True, you can’t believe most blogger profiles… except mine.
Wow,actually pretending to be on chemo? I like to read profiles but I believe a lot are just fun or out to shock
Hmmmm, well I just went to my profile, to see what it looked like. Made no changes, it suits me fine. The only thing that could be considered as misleading, is the avatar I use for my profile picture. But, I just liked it, so I used it.
Hmmm. I have two blogs. One profile tells the truth about me the other one simply lists a quote.
I agree that you should be prudent about believing that people are as they present themselves to be. I think if they are, it will show up through a degree of consistency. If they’re not, you can expect to see various discrepancies.
For the most part I tend to accept that people are as they present themselves to be unless those discrepancies begin to creep in, and the manner in which they do. Some “discrepancies” could be seen as preserving anonymity or privacy, whereas others are little more than game-playing. I can understand the needs of the former and do my best to steer clear of the latter.
Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am the real thing:-)
I would post a picture of myself in uniform, but it’s frowned upon by the dept.
Wait a second! Leon, are you trying to tell us that you are not a young Jamaican man? Maybe you are a middle aged woman from New Jersey and that your real name is Maritza? Time to confess!
I know what you mean. People can be whoever they want to be on the internet, for better or worse!
Very insightful.
I try to change up my profile once and awhile, but it’s pretty accurate.
I mean, why would I want to lie about living in Edmonton.
I pretty much just use pseudonyms so that a. I can protect my identity, and not get fired (because I blog a lot from work)
b. I don’t get charged with slander from my sorority’s international
Woof!
You just described me in your last paragraph!