Bloggity Blog Blog

Bloggity Blog Blog

“Call when you want, but there’s no one home, and you’re not gonna reach my telephone!”

These lyrics are repeating like a broken CD in my head after experiencing a blog on www.mashable.com about Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s collaborative hit music video “Telephone” premiering on Vevo [VIDEO]. I then spent 20 minutes (my computer is slow) watching this video, which is over 9 minutes long. Ah, pop music videos with their elaborately sexy costumes, and androgynous backup dancers. What did I gain from this experience? I gained some dance move ideas and catchy lyrics from the video. I gained nothing from the actual blog that I would consider in the realm of literary inspiration.

So…writing a blog about writing a blog… There has been a lot of resistance towards writing blogs among my fellow colleagues in my creative writing class at The University of South Florida in St. Petersburg. These are who I consider very talented individuals with great writing skills. But assigning blogs is like pulling teeth. Why the resistance? What makes a blog worth writing and ultimately, worth reading?

I got a clue when I read that blog about Lady Gaga, and then again when I read another blog by Eric Deggans (The Feed) about supermodel Heidi Klum’s show “Project Runway.” Contestant Ben Chmura, a designer and resident of Tampa Bay, created a suit for his model that was inspired by sharks. The suit got bad remarks and caused him to be voted off the show. Chmura apparently hadn’t been a very popular or noticeable contestant until he was shown dramatically crying to his boyfriend over the phone when he was told to leave. Deggans commented on how most reality TV shows will stage a dramatic exit for some contestants “so viewers feel a bit more loss when that person is ejected from the show.” I enjoyed that Eric Deggans pointed out how much of a set-up these shows are but was also left with a little literary emptiness when I finished reading his blog post.

The types of blogs I’ve just described remind me of articles found in media magazines or bits done by hosts on entertainment recap shows, and, in my opinion, lack the ability to inspire and to cause deep reflection, which I think are aspects of great literature. The purpose of these blogs seems to be only to inform. The writer does very little self-reflecting and a lot of reporting. I was informed that Lady Gaga and Beyonce hit some good marks with their sex-bombarded collaboration, and was reminded that reality TV is so far away from reality. I think I could have gotten the same from watching MTV or VH1.

I think blog quality really depends on the audience. I suppose if what was happening in the latest reality show was really important to me, I would probably read more of that type. I did read another blog post from a Blog called From the Floor that I thought was worth my reading time. The blogger, Todd Gibson, an art critic writes an entry called “Why We’re called ‘From the Floor.’” He justifies his purpose as an art critic through an anecdote about his experiences attending seminars as a graduate student. Gibson watched professors and other participants rant about the politics of aesthetics through biased viewpoints and no consideration of audience perspective, and was inspired to bring more of a genuine quality to his writing about art. I liked how the blog has structure to it; the blogger introduces a point, embellishes it with a story, reflects on his point, and then he concludes it. The message and the blogger’s point are clear at the end. I connected to the blog personally because I’ve had some experience writing and critiquing art as an Art History undergraduate student and have also sat in on seminars similar to the one Gibson described in his blog. I was also able to reflect on what constitutes quality in an art critique.

I have little experience in the scope of blog writing; in fact, this is the first time I have considered blog writing as a literary style. I wrote a couple of blog entries on www.myspace.com a few years ago that are very much like personal diary/journal entries. I wrote one entry about a dramatic break-up with my boyfriend a few years ago, for example. I wrote about how the experience turned me into a “shaman” because my soul ‘died’ with the breakup and I ‘rose back to life’ with a new sense of awareness and wisdom. I laugh at that now because, though I really did sense a bit of enlightenment at the time and think some my words are wise, I would not proudly declare that blog post as something really worthy of a literary accomplishment. I think only like five people of the two-hundred –and-something “friends” that I have on the site have read that entry. It’s been posted for about four years now. My point is: my impression of blogs is that many blogs are personal—I call them “me, me, me” rants. So, naturally, I can see why a group of students would rather not have to read 10 blog posts about something that they might not be interested in, especially if the blog posts are about day-to-day functions and don’t have an ability to cause connections. If the blog is about experiences, let the experience lead to something.

Reading the above mentioned blogs made me realize that there are different aims in blog writing: to inform,  to tell a story, or to produce a lesson or a realization of some sort. Another aim is to reflect on personal experiences. I believe readability really depends on the audience. As for literary quality, I believe that a blog can be considered literature when it achieves most, if not all, of these aims. A blog worth reading is a blog that I will think about for longer than it took me to read it. It should have style in delivery and structure. And it shouldn’t make me want to ‘change the channel.’ Save all the gyrating and dramatic crying for television!