Deconstructing the Blog

Deconstructing the Blog
By John C. Dvorak (pcmag.com)

Web logging, or blogging, looks to be the fastest-growing hobby on the Internet, and I've been studying the phenomenon to death. I intend to do my own blog, but I wanted to have a better understanding of what constitutes a really great blog.

The way I see it, there are two kinds of blogs. Faux blogs can be set up by authors promoting books or newsletters, or they can be periodicals posing as blogs to get attention from other bloggers. To me, the true blog is a legitimate journal of day-to-day life. I've deconstructed over 100 such blogs. This analysis led me to produce some formulas for a successful blog. Here are my Eight Rules for the Perfect Blog.

1. The right attitude. Make it clear that you spend the day, week, or month sitting on your rump reading other blogs instead of looking for work. Or if you actually work, make it clear that you are writing the blog at work, because you hate your job.

2. Community. Prove that you're a dedicated blogger by citing at least five other blogs that you just read. Praise them ad nauseum. Then comment on links that their authors discovered and cut and paste these links to your blog. If you're trying to jazz up your blog, italicize the text that you cut from the other blog. Add a sentence or two as to why each link is so cool. Teasers work well too. "Can you believe this?" or "What is he thinking?" or "How can anyone be so wrong?"

3. Humility. Blog daily. If you miss a day, use the next day's entire blog entry to apologize profusely. Explain in detail the fascinating adventure you had that caused you to miss a day of blogging. Make sure to rave about how great blogging is and why everyone should blog and how blogging will change the world.

4. Rich language. Show that you're an independent free spirit by adding a lot of profanity to your text. Profane headlines and general cussing show people that you are an autonomous thinker not bound by the silly conventions of society—those lousy rules that make you have to work for a living when you should be getting a check from the government just for being alive!

5. Jargon. Pepper your text with words like screed, grok, gonzo, meme, and other bloggerisms to show that you are a hip and with-it blogger. Women bloggers should use the word sister a lot.

6. Controversy. Make sure your blog page has a list of your favorite bloggers, and hound them to put your blog on their lists. If you get removed from someone's list, make a public outcry and demand to be returned to the place of honor, or threaten to take the other blogger's name off your list. Go through this routine weekly with someone.

7. Humor. Give your blog a cute name, perhaps even using a pun. "Blog on the Run." "Blogday Afternoon." "Bloggin' Fool." "Hot Blog and Relish." Or name the blog after a title of a great novel: "The Sound and the Fury," "The Naked and the Dead." In a pinch, use "My Blog."

8. Specialize. If you want to trumpet the fact that you're a rockin' techie, constantly harp on Linux, and link to the cool scripts you've written. Link to a lot of anti-Microsoft diatribes. Use 6-point type and no page breaks, so the blog looks like source code when it's displayed on the screen. Add color to make it even more unreadable. Use the word warez now and again.

To promote the idea that you're an artiste, use dark gray sans serif type on a black background. Put the links in red. Put a lot of poetry in the blog. In fact, write the whole blog in poetry. Tell others to contribute. Run everything you get.

If you're a woman who hates men, make sure to use a lot of odd misspellings, such as womyn and grrls to let men know that you hate them. Make lame comments about how all men are pigs in case they still don't get it. Moan about your life and blame it on men. Reference your miserable high-school years. Name names.

If you are a lunatic fan who has fallen in love with a rock singer, actress, or actor without ever meeting him or her, then your blog should contain a lot of pictures of the target of your affection—possibly nothing but pictures. Go on and on about how hot the person is. Do yourself a favor and avoid showing pictures of the secret hidden-in-the-closet shrine you made.

Finally, for all bloggers, consider using a cat name—Snowball, perhaps—as your own.