Blog terminated for being too popular!

I recently came across a defunct blog (the Internet must already be littered with the corpses of blogs cast adrift for a variety of reasons, including death of the blogger!) which had been terminated, it would seem, for having been... wait for it... too popular (!) and taken up too much of the blogger’s time. It appeared that the blog in question had a large following (how large this was, I cannot say, as the list of followers was concealed and no indication of its size was given). The blogger gave no personal name, not even their sex, and of course no country of residence (although from the posts, Scotland would be a good candidate!). All that there was in the ‘About Me’ section was a cartoon picture of a female and this gender was reinforced by the tenor of the posts. The Blog had apparently began in June 2009 and by September 2010 it has already been shut down. Not a very long time by any Blogger’s estimation, I would think.    
 

Damn! This blog of mine is much too popular!

What aroused my curiosity most of all were the various reasons given for closing the blog: ‘...fast disappearing waistline.’; ‘...the whole time my waistline bulged.’; ‘The hours put into this anonymous diary (why anonymous, I wonder?) have to be put to something more ‘real’,’; ‘It’s time for me to wash off that face mask, get rid of the hair band and let my hair down for a while.’  The issue of being overweight was a constant theme of this blog, one post going so far as to say: “Please God, if you can’t make me thin, make my friends fat!!” More tellingly, the writer added: ‘In the beginning I begged for followers and comments, now there’s too many to respond to.’ and ‘I have outgrown this space – in more ways than one.’



It seems that the author of this particular blog was closing it down essentially on two grounds: that it was increasingly stealing her time which she could ill afford and could better spend on other activities and that the time it demanded of her (and therefore obliged her to sit at the computer) was adding to her waistline! The growing popularity of her blog had made it all the worse and things had now got out of hand for her, as she was having to devote more and more time to it, responding to the many comments it elicited. (The complaint of most of us is that no-one is reading our blog!)



And so, after about one year and four months of blogging, the author brings the curtain down on her blog for being too popular, and therefore time-consuming, and for ruining her waistline (!), although she does add as an after-thought at the end of her farewell post: “It was so much fun while it lasted and maybe one day you’ll see me disguised as another.” Remember that there’s no photo of the author, just a cartoon figure, and no details about her in her profile. She does however make one concession in this last farewell post, signing herself off as Kerry. This could of course be a made-up name, although I rather doubt it, as there was no real reason to break with her constant practice of anonymity and give a name as she made her exit.



Despite giving reasons for her having brought her blog to an end, I cannot help feeling that there might be more to this than meets the eye, that there are other factors at play here, other motives. It could even be that the blogger had already decided to start up a new blog, under a new identity, make a fresh start, gain a new and different following, change the whole ethos of her blogging. It could be. We have no way of knowing. It just seems strange to me that someone who has been blogging for just over a year, won a large following, is attracting lots of comments on her writing, has made a success of it (where many others falter and fail), is now bringing it all to a close because, supposedly, it’s preventing her from having a ‘real’ life and from losing weight!



It's time to kill off this blog!

But maybe I’m too suspicious, too distrusting, and that the author of the blog in question is sincere and honest and is genuinely giving up blogging. Maybe. Or maybe she's just giving up that particular blog and wants to start up a new one, as I've said above, and prefers to make a clean slate of it? Blogs are being started and closed all the time and for all sorts of reasons and causes. I suppose the most common reasons for abandoning a blog are death, illness, failure to attract a following, a wish to start afresh with a new ‘skin’, a new outlook, a new take on the world, and not because the blog has become too popular or that it is causing the blogger to put on weight! And yet who is to say these are not this blogger’s true reasons?

Thus closes another blog as a hundred others start up. The Blogosphere is a curious place and its very anonymity gives rise to a whole host of peculiarities, eccentricities and excesses. There is often sadness when a much-loved blog is closed down and the author melts back into the infinity and anonymity of the ether which makes up the Internet. Sometimes there may even be a feeling of betrayal on the part of the follower who has given his support to someone who now shuts shop and vanishes leaving them in a defunct blog. This is of course acute when the posts dry up, with no reason given, and followers are left guessing as to the cause. Has the author been taken seriously ill or even died? There’s no way of knowing. At least the author of the blog concerned has made a final farewell posting, given her reasons for terminating, and taken her leave in a proper and decorous manner.

I suppose the moral of this little tale (if there be one), is that even success can have its down side. Somehow I don’t think I will ever have to worry about my blog becoming too popular or my disappointing my followers, or being missed by anyone in Blogland if and when my posts dry up one day. But maybe this is a blessing in disguise? There’s no pressure to please or play to the gallery, no stress to write often and well, no strain from having to respond to lots of comments, and no urgency to, well, do anything really. Yes, maybe I’m fortunate after all...

Let's have a moan!

The most challenging thing about this blogging lark is to come up with a new topic each time that's worth writing about and, more to the point, that's worth reading. This is of course a subjective issue, as what is of interest to one person may be grindingly boring to another. As an example, you may have already decided this post is going to be mind-numbingly tedious and are exiting as you read this sentence!

Once, when many of us kept a paper diary, it was more of a spontaneous act and we did not much care what we wrote in it or even how we wrote. We scribbled away secure in the almost certain knowledge that it would end up in some dusty attic corner to be consumed by moths long after we had turned to dust ourselves! We never showed it to anyone, didn't think it would be of interest to anybody, and it was often so untidily written that it was doubtful if it could be deciphered by anyone who came by it even if they could be bothered to make the effort.

Well, all that changed with the advent of online blogging. Now when we keep a blog, which is I suppose a sort of electronic journal or diary, one's posts are likely to be read within minutes or hours of having been published, and many of those reading them are likely to be complete and utter strangers. And some of them will want, and will normally be able, to comment on our posts.  (In this respect, I count myself lucky as there is no danger of this happening to my blog which seems to be the best-kept secret on the Internet ... hehhe... so no-one will read this post either! But never mind, I will pretend I'm only doing it for myself.).

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how may bloggers out there find the time to do what they do. They not only post every week and often more than once, they also tweet every day, they respond to comments from their many followers, they're on Facebook and other social networking websites, and they're into God knows how many other Internet activities! And some of these bloggers have hundreds or thousands of followers! Just as on FB where there are individuals with thousands of 'friends'! How do they do it? How do they manage to keep all these online sites of theirs updated, interact with visitors and still have some sort of a 'real' life? Beats me. Many bloggers are debating the issue of whether they should continue with an open-to-all blog or restrict it to just a few. To my mind, 'privatising' a blog in this way doesn't make much sense. The whole point of writing a journal online instead of keeping a paper diary, I venture to suggest, is to reach a wide audience, and not just in our own country, and to communicate one's ideas, opinions and convictions to such an audience. If our blog is only made accessible to a select few, it rather defeats the empowering and liberating purpose of the blogging ethos, I would have thought.

When you think about it, one could quite easily get involved in so many online pursuits, Blogger and Facebook being just two of the best-known ones, that there are not enough hours in a day or a week to keep them going and to see to everything else that makes up one's life. It helps of course if one does not have a job and can while away the daylight hours (in addition to the night-time ones!) in all these online activities. And, judging by many people who are continually posting things on Facebook throughout the day (often announcing their progress or achivement in some FB application), there are many idle souls about.

But it's not just online applications that are taking up so much of people's time, it's also all the weird and wonderful hand-held electronic gadgets that are must-haves for everyone today, especially the young. In my case, I’m still getting the hang of the mobile phone! Yet the youth of today take to all this gadgetry so easily and so seamlessly. They have their MP4 player (or whatever version it is now) and their i-phone, and i-pad, and i-tunes, and the rest of it. Somehow it all gels together and makes sense to them, whereas to us 'older folk' it just adds to the confusion in our lives. Thus, when you're out and about and unable to use your computer, the cellphone doubles up as one! Never mind about taking photos, that's old hat now. Today's mobile phone can take you onto the Internet and you can browse around, send and receive e-mails, network, and do many other things that you would do on your desktop or laptop.

Coming back, however, to the 'original' function of the phone, it's become such a common sight nowadays to see people speaking on their mobile phone in the street, in shops, banks, on the bus and the train, and in the park, to name but a few places. Have you noticed how loudly people seem to talk when on the phone in any queue? When I’m in a bank or post office queue (which I try and avoid like the plague), anyone speaking on their mobile seems to feel the need to talk at the top of their voice, much more loudly than they would in a face-to-face conversation. Now why is that, I wonder? They don't appear to care that everyone can hear them or that they might be inconveniencing others around them and so they witter on and on about nothing in particular. You find yourself fighting off the urge to grab hold of the confounded device and throw it as far as you can until it shatters into a thousand pieces.

Still on the subject of the cellphone, the other day I was strolling in a small park near my house and saw a woman doing one of these fast walks around the park. When I spotted her she was already on the phone. She did one lap round the park and continued talking on the phone. She did another and was still yapping on her mobile. And, as I left the park, she was still with her hand raised holding the phone to her ear, prattling on as she continued fast-walking round the park. What on earth did she have to say that needed such a long phone conversation and in the middle of what was supposed to be a serious exercise session? She was seriously addicted to the damn thing!

How about when you get on the bus or in the tube and someone has earphones on as they listen to invariably ear-splittingly loud music. And of course you can hear it even though it's usually quite muted. Nevertheless it's annoying, to say the least, but you put up with it. To object would doubtless make things worse, as the culprit, almost certainly a 'yoof', will give you a mouthful and then carry on regardless. So you either put up or shut up, or ship out! That is you move to another seat. There's really no other sensible way.

I think that as a society we have become coarser in our manners, boorish and churlish in our ways. We are too ready to be rude to strangers, to use bad language in public, and to be a nuisance to others around us. We are more confrontational now, more vociferous, and more demanding. The inconsiderate way we use our mobile phone in public is just one example (but a good one) of the couldn't-care-less attitude we have adopted towards others. “I will talk loudly and endlessly on the phone even if I'm in a queue in a public place, because that's what I want to do!”  "I will wear headphones in crowded places and live in my own little world of blaring pop music as if no-one else exists, because that's what i want to do!"

For my final moan to round things off... I often see in my local park (yes, we're back in the park) an elderly person with a young person by their side (who looks to be in their late teens or early twenties).  The youth is obviously a sort of minder charged (probably by Social Services) with taking the elderly person out for a walk and looking after them in general. But what do I often see? I see the young minder with a mobile phone glued to their ear, busy nattering away. Just the other day I saw a flagrant example of this. Whilst I was doing several rounds of the park, the minder spent the whole time chatting on his mobile, totally oblivious to his charge who, poor old dear, just sat there looking around and looking lost. There was no attempt by the minder to engage her in conversation or to give her the slightest bit of attention. He was much too absorbed in his phone call. And this is not an isolated instance, as I have witnessed this sort of thing on a number of occasions - a clear example of where a praiseworthy act is done but in a half-hearted manner.

Well, that's enough griping from me - for the time-being. It seems I’m getting to be a right moaning minnie, or, in my case (for reasons of gender), a moaning manny! But what can I do? It's an age thing... I think.

Bloggers and Blockheads

This post will most likely make me unpopular, assuming anyone reads my blog (and that is very open to question, as is the premise that I am popular and can therefore become unpopular), but one has to let off steam once in a while and this is one of those once-in-a-while times for me. So here goes...

It is only when you start blogging and see the variety of other blogs that are on offer that you realise how lucky you are to be coming across the authors of those blogs only virtually and not in real life. It seems that for every really interesting and worthwhile person out there there are a hundred self-important oddballs, dreary droning nerds, stuffy old farts, silly empty-headed teenagers and wearisome witless weirdos, all of whom think that they are sharing pearls of wisdom and nuggets of intuitive insight about the world we live in. And of course in 99% of cases they are not. You've heard it all before and a lot of it is simply about growing up and that's a phase we all go through, it's not only given to a select few. And it's probably all been said before, hundreds if not thouands of years ago!

The strange thing about all this is that a lot of these online oddities are probably normal humang beings in real life and you wouldn't guess what nonsense was going through their minds if they were not blogging. They look normal and act normal but when they are in blogging mode they turn into first-class loons or nutty nitwits determined to prove to the rest of us how precious they are by their words. It's a bit like car drivers. Most people who drive a car are perfectly normal decent and polite human beings, but put them behind the wheel and they turn into sadistic monsters raging against other motorists and uttering every kind of profanity known to man. As soon as they come out of their car, they are back to normality, Mr Hyde has changed back into Dr Jekyll and all is sweetness and light again. And so it is with many bloggers out there in the blogosphere.

There is every kind of blog you can imagine out there and there are peddlars for every imaginable idea and concept and for those you haven't even imagined yet. So much so that some blogs are so 'way out' that they are virtually unreadable and unintelligible and were you to be able to give advice to the author you might strongly recommend some psychotherapy as a matter of urgency. No wonder we have so many mentally sick people in society! Now, thanks to the Internet and sites like blogger this motley band of misfits (could I be one of them?!) are all able to parade their dark imaginings and twisted cravings online in an effort to win acolytes and pass on their lunacies to others.

I often trawl the blogosphere in search of choice blogs that truly inform and entertain and it has to be a labour of love on my part, since I have to sample scores and scores of blogs before stumbling on one that has something of substance to say and presents it in a tasteful and interesting context and with some thought for the reader. I am presuming here, of course, that the ultimate goal of any blogger worth his name is to get his blog read by others. This may possibly be a daring presumption on my part but I nevertheless believe it to be true for the most part, otherwise they could just as easily scribble their thoughts in an exercise book or notepad, as we used to do before the arrival of the Internet. It's a mammoth task to separate the wheat from the chaff, and boy is there a lot of chaff out there! Perhaps it's even in this very blog of mine, in which case you will probably not be reading this now. Tsssskkkk!

But, having said all that and having left a lot unsaid, it's all free speech, I suppose, and that must be a good thing. It probably allows a lot of oddballs and nutters out there to let off steam and get things out of their system which, had they not this very effective safety-valve to release their pent-up feelings, growing frustrations and delusions of greatness, they might get up to serious mischief in the real world and do a lot more harm. Or maybe not, maybe it's the other way round and after building up a good head of steam on here they go out and mug old ladies, smash phone booths, and slash car tyres! Personally, the worst I've ever done is to go into the local park and piss up the side of a tree. Now that's protest for you with a capital 'P'! Next time it's the duck pond!