Thursday, April 10, 2008

Faking The Blog

Ever find yourself needing to do a blog post but not knowing what to write?  Here are a few tried and true methods for "faking" it!

The "Look at My Pictures" Post

Ah yes, the classic lazy-man's blog of choice!  Here, you post a bunch of pictures and make a small comment on each...this gives the illusion of a large blog due to all the space your pictures take up, but you don't actually have to say anything except for a few words under each picture like "Cute, ain't they?" or "Look at how goofy (insert name here) looks! Ha!"  It's not that posting pictures is lame...I like looking at pictures...but don't try to call it a meaningful blog post.  That's like rolling a piece of bread through a pile of sugar and calling it a cookie.  And hey, can we at least make sure the pictures are something that the average person would find interesting?  No one wants to see time-lapse photographs of your cat staring at a spot on the wall while you virtually giggle at it by typing "LOL" over and over.  No one wants to see 45 pictures of a blade of grass with dew on it and your one-liner about how it's just like the way we should love one another.  And NO, no one wants to see 12 different poses of you holding a paintbrush as you prepare to put a coat on your new house, especially if you're all sweaty and nappy looking.  If you are on week 4 of your blog series entitled "Watching My Tomatoes Grow", realize that the Internet sucks because of people like you.   

The "Which 'Lost' TV star are you?" Post

These blogs require even less effort than the "Picture Post" blogs, and also make a lame attempt at providing some sort of personal benefit to your readers.  Here, you post some sort of quiz or poll asking your reader to choose which type of candy bar they most resemble, and in doing so you hope to provide them some deep insights into their psyche.  Yes, that's right...deep insight into a person's psyche based on the results of a quiz that they take...on your blog...in about 2 minutes.  This idea is not only lazy, but also troubling...that people would seek life advice from you, an untrained blogger who has demonstrated that they are too lazy to even do a worthwhile post is unsettling at best.  I can see someone breaking up with their girlfriend because "I'm an Apple Pie and you are not an Ice Cream...no way this relationship can last."  

The "Plagiarism Post" Post

Some people cannot do a blog without posting something meaningful...but what do you do on days when you either a) don't feel like typing something long and meaningful or b) don't have anything meaningful to say and are in such a foul mood that you'd punch a baby puppy (see Alli's blog for a nice selection of puppies to choose from) if you could?  Never fear!  There are plenty of other blogs out there that have deep insights...all you have to do is go cut and paste their thoughts into your own blog and post that instead!  Never mind that the purpose for having your own blog is so that YOU can share your OWN thoughts - and hey, if you look enough maybe you can find a four or five part series so that you can milk it for more than one post!  What a freaking cheater!

The "Video / Slide Show" Post

This type of post is the absolute minimum a person can do and still call it a blog.  It won't have any content in it whatsoever outside of a stupidly not-funny YouTube video of a comedian talking about spatulas or a slide show containing 57 pictures of your kids eating dinner.  Each picture will have a small caption to it describing to us what we are seeing - "Little Carter eats a piece of cake!"  Like we couldn't figure that out without the caption...like we'd look at the picture of your kid eating cake and go, "OMG!  What in the hell is that kid doing?  What is that strange material he's putting into his mouth?"   

The "Fake Blogs Suck" Post

In this post, you poke fun at everyone else's lame attempts to fake a blog post while you do the same thing.  You try to appear funny and disgruntled, hoping your readers will not catch on to the fact that you are basically writing a "fake" blog on fake blogs.  It's probably ok since you have approximately 5 hits per year and since no one likes you.  You are so lame.  What the heck were you even thinking?  You should delete this blog before...no that's the "publish" button not the "delete" button you dolt!  Now everyone is going to know what you did!  Idiot!  Stop typing now...stop...STOP!!!

"Did you do that quiz on Jamie's blog?  It says I'm a "middle finger", which means that I have a knack for showing people exactly how I feel!  I'm not too happy about it, but at least I'm not one of those gold-digging "ring fingers"...or a "thumb"...cause you know what they always say...'WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING AROUND WITH YOUR THUMB UP YOUR BUTT?'  Yeah...it would suck to be that guy."