{"id":6003,"date":"2011-12-28T02:10:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T09:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flomu.wordpress.com\/?p=6003"},"modified":"2018-12-20T00:11:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T07:11:36","slug":"editorial-day-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/2011\/12\/editorial-day-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial Day: Perfectionist Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last week, I happened to stop lusting after TF2 hats long enough to read Scamp’s post on\u00a0real people<\/a>. \u00a0First of all, I didn’t know he got a girlfriend. \u00a0I didn’t know when mef and Owen got together, either. \u00a0I didn’t know that canon and I got together, either. \u00a0But more importantly, it got me thinking…
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Why do we blog?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I want to find other people interested in anime!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’d say no. \u00a0If you really wanted a community of anime fans, you’d join a forum, IRC, twitter, google group<\/em>, etc. \u00a0Of course, most bloggers are involved in at least one of those. \u00a0Blogs are lonely islands, not much of a community to talk to. \u00a0Forums, on the other hand, are centered around discussion and socializing. \u00a0You can get off ideas much more quickly in a thread or in a tweet than in a long series of blog posts.<\/p>\n

Actually, I changed my mind. \u00a0I want to share my ideas about anime!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, that’s only partially valid.<\/p>\n

If all you wanted to do was to share an idea, you wouldn’t be posting it on a blog… especially not one with a small readership. \u00a0Sharing implies socializing, and building up a blog to a community large and stable enough for your ideas to be heard takes much more work and time than most of us peasant-tier people would be willing to spend.<\/p>\n

Forums provide a pre-built community and audience willing to hear your ideas and reply to them. \u00a0Twitter takes some work (pushing the “follow” button and typing @_____ before a tweet), but it’s not hard either. \u00a0Blogging is a step-by-step, “you comment on my blog, I comment on yours” process. \u00a0Readers have to be lured in one by one. \u00a0There has to be some other reason why we all decided to blog.<\/p>\n

Then what is the reason, smartybriefs?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When it comes down to it, blogs are a way of cementing our ideas into the web. \u00a0It’s sad to see a blogger leave the sphere, and even sadder when his old website goes down. \u00a0Those ideas were created to stay for years on end.<\/p>\n

Blogs give a sense of permanence that forums and other social media just can’t compete with. \u00a0Just try and find some of my tweets from 2010. \u00a0Twitter is designed so that new ideas are always at the top, so whatever good ideas that do come out on Twitter get buried under hundreds of tweets about the weather and links to youtube videos. \u00a0Forums are a few times better, but your thoughts and other peoples’ thoughts all get mixed together so you’d still have to sift through pages of threads to find your personal ideas.<\/p>\n

So in the end, the answer is:\u00a0“To get my ideas down.”<\/p>\n

Of course<\/a>, this is my conclusion. \u00a0It’s what I came to after taking my 10th grade English teacher’s advice and kept asking “why?” \u00a0For bloggers with lofty goals (publishing, making money), their reason is going to be radically different. \u00a0But for those of us in the niche anime blogosphere, I think this covers it.<\/p>\n

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You’re awfully Socrates today. \u00a0What’s the matter? \u00a0And why does this matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d prefer to say I’m exceptionally Aristotle. \u00a0I could extend the reason above to better explain why I do what I do.<\/p>\n

Getting my ideas down onto a website simply isn’t good enough for me. \u00a0I need something to be proud of. \u00a0For me, a blog needs to show the best of a person, whether is be in terms of their writing or of their personality. \u00a0So when I see a messy blog like Chocolate Syrupy Waffles<\/a>\u00a0or people trying too hard<\/a> to be who they aren’t, it annoys me. \u00a0It’s not professional. \u00a0I know you can do better. \u00a0It betrays the very essence of what I believe a blog is about.<\/p>\n

More things that annoy me:<\/p>\n