Blog Blog Baby

Wow, I'd forgotten about that parody, and what an awful song the original was! What a blatant ripoff of Queen’s “Under Pressure.” I think this clip was on "In Living Color." Recognize that guy? It's Jim Carrey. Now that I've stopped laughing, I'll move on to my topic, which is blogging.

I know, I know, we've all talked about it before, nigh unto death, but some interesting new statistics have come to light. Also, Cousin Shane's friend Doug (Hi Doug! [waving]) wrote to me and said that he wants to start a blog and would like to talk to me about it. We had a nice conversation, and talked about different platforms, ease of use, etc. So it's on my mind today, and I have to say that I was quite surprised to read some of the statistics.

My friend Dan (Milwaukee Dan #1...Hi Dan! [waving]) sent me a story on Facebook from the New York Times concerning blogging. Follow the link to read the entire article, which was quite interesting. According to the article, blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants. For anyone who has ever thought that it would be "fun" to own a restaurant and did a little research and found out just how hard it is to maintain a steady clientele and income, that comparison is shocking. Restaurants drop like flies (although that's probably an unfortunate metaphor) every day, so I would think it would be hard to have a higher failure rate than that! Not so.

According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.

95%?! That's astounding to me! What's even more astounding is to realize that those of us that update regularly constitute only 5% of the blogs on Technorati. Doesn't that make you feel a little bit special? It does me. I've said before that I send a salute to all bloggers who are able to keep it up and keep going. Of course, real life gets in the way, and not everyone has enough time to make regular entries--I'm fortunate in that regard. The article also mentions the popularity of MySpace, Facebook, and most recently, Twitter (which made the cover of Time this week, believe it or not). I think that those of us who made the transition from AOL Journals to Blogger have definitely noticed the drop-off of some regulars at AOL, and I think that some of that has to do with microblogging sites.

I like to mix it up a little. I still love writing here, but I love connecting with work friends and blog friends who use Facebook--I also love how easy it is to share articles or videos there. I never got into MySpace, although I have an account there, and I'm not quite as enamored with Twitter as so many seem to be at the moment. (Fame is fleeting Twitter...you've been warned.) I do sort of like posting random thoughts (à la Jack Handey), but I still prefer and need to expand a little more upon my thoughts. Maybe the next au courant site will consist of one word updates. Twitter is fun for stalking following the famous and semi-famous, and my latest acquisitions (makes me want to read The Collector again) are Russell Brand and Jason Segel (after watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"). Russell Brand is quite the enigma. But I digress. Back to the article.

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

Again, astounding. How cool is it to build up a little following, to know that there are people out there who want to know what you have to say? It's way cool, that's how cool. It makes me very grateful that I get feedback from you all, and to have people reading this other than family! I am very happy about that, and I thank you all.

To Doug I say "safe passage and bon voyage!" I look forward to reading what he has to write, and if he chooses to make his blog public, I will definitely put up the link here. He's a wonderful writer who was stationed in Afghanistan and recently opted out of the Navy and returned home. I suspect he might have plenty to say!

*****

One more topic, and then I think I’m done for the evening. I’m not letting this one go by without rebuttal. I read something today in which the writer included this picture of Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni at the D-Day tribute in France over the weekend. They interpreted it as Mrs. Obama having “issues,” and took it as some sort of indication of nastiness or hatred on the first lady’s part. The general attitude was that it was typical of her.

Oh, for God’s sake. And people wonder why I find such writings ridiculous, counterproductive, irrational, illogical, and foolish. Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah…stoopid.

I’ll tell you what. Let’s say we have…oh, how about a hundred? That’s a nice round number, although it’s probably much more than that. Let’s have a hundred photographers from all over the world follow you around at, if not every waking moment, every time you appear in public. Let’s say that each of those hundred photographers takes a hundred pictures in the space of an hour—again, a very conservative estimate, because most photojournalists will take many more than that. Let’s then say that you spend five hours in the public eye, with those hundred journalists taking one hundred pictures per hour. [picture me wearing a green visor, an armband, and punching in numbers at an adding machine]

By my calculations, that is a conservative estimate of 50,000 pictures.

So you’ve got 50,000 images of every expression you make while you’re out and about. Every grimace of pain as a pebble works its way inside your shoe. Every sideways glance you make. Every squint as the sun proves to be a little too bright, and since it’s impolite, you can’t wear sunglasses at certain times. Every time you get a wedgie because your panties creep up on you. Every moment that you aren’t smiling. Every time you feel a muscle twitch or experience a pain in your neck or back because you worked out a little too vigorously the previous day. Every time you experience all the little aches and pains and twitches and irritations that we all experience every fucking day, you’ve got someone there snapping a picture of you. Think about what sort of pictures might be captured of you.

Cut it out, people. This is bullshit, and you know it. If any of you want to say, “But Beth, you put up pictures of Sarah Palin’s office, and talked about that!” Yes, I did. That is a physical space, a reflection of her philosophy and her environment, and not a split-second snapshot of her face interpreted as something sinister. Putting up such a picture and portraying the first lady as angry or elitist or feeling contempt for other first ladies or for ceremonies honoring those who have served in the military is foolish, it’s hateful, and it’s an incredibly stupid argument that shows nothing of substance, only the contempt and hatred you feel for the President, and apparently for his wife.

And that’s all I have to say about that.