Tuesday, December 16, 2003
the flying chair awards are all the buzz at the moment.
I can't help but groan when I read Singapore's lead contender of the moment, xiaxue.
It's a sad day when an ah-lian draws the most votes. Because it's really all about supply, and demand. It's not so much a poor reflection of her - she can't help being an ah-lian after all, and she is remarkably eloquent (pause) well sort-of eloquent, and kinda funny (in a rather crass and thoughtless way) in her own odd little way.
But that there's such a huge demand for her is what saddens me. Is that all we're reduced to as a community? It's like reality TV, really. Everyone reads it with open-mouthed, slack jawed amusement, just waiting to see how much lower she can possibly sink to. We laugh, but in a slightly embarrassed way. It is reality TV. Not good TV, just reality TV.
And I have to laugh when I read what she thinks constitutes a good blog - in a single breath, she sweeps everyone else's blogs aside with a flourish - too intellectual, too grammatical. too much about other people, not egocentric enough.
and then she pimps (yes, quite literally!) her site for votes on flyingchair. because, she justifies, a good web log is all about how much attention you garner. Nevermind her D in her language for the web exam -- that she gets readership shows her that The Markers were wrong.
Wrong-o.
The best blogs are the blogs that are special to the people who write them. The best blogs are written for the writers, and not the readers. The funniest blogs are written by funny people, who simply are. Not by people who try to be funny to make their readers laugh, and their ratings soar. The best blogs have a subtle scent of sincerity about them. Not the foul reek of sensationalism.
To be completely honest, I take offence with the flying chair awards. It's turning thought-driven personal blogs into commercial flying-circuses for the crass entertainment of the public. It's turning ordinary people, with their funny little neuroticisms into celebrity wannabes driven by their latent - but now reawakened narcicissm.
It's destroying the point of blogging.
Anne Frank had a diary. She epitomised the spirit of diary-writing. Caught between hell, and a hot place, she chose to laugh, and write.
She didn't write for the large cine-audience that would one day watch her diary transformed into images on big-screen. She didn't even write for a literary audience that would, in days to come long after her death, applaud her frank sincerity. She didn't write for attention - in her world, attention brought death at the end of a hot, indifferent, smoking muzzle.
She wrote for herself.
She wrote because she loved to.
And therein lies the spirit of blogging.
I would never demean any of my friend's blogs by nominating them for the flying chair awards - unless they asked me to. They belong, quietly tucked away and treasured by the people who love them. And if they have hundreds upon thousands of readers... that is irrelevant. Their owners write, because they love to.
I can't help but groan when I read Singapore's lead contender of the moment, xiaxue.
It's a sad day when an ah-lian draws the most votes. Because it's really all about supply, and demand. It's not so much a poor reflection of her - she can't help being an ah-lian after all, and she is remarkably eloquent (pause) well sort-of eloquent, and kinda funny (in a rather crass and thoughtless way) in her own odd little way.
But that there's such a huge demand for her is what saddens me. Is that all we're reduced to as a community? It's like reality TV, really. Everyone reads it with open-mouthed, slack jawed amusement, just waiting to see how much lower she can possibly sink to. We laugh, but in a slightly embarrassed way. It is reality TV. Not good TV, just reality TV.
And I have to laugh when I read what she thinks constitutes a good blog - in a single breath, she sweeps everyone else's blogs aside with a flourish - too intellectual, too grammatical. too much about other people, not egocentric enough.
and then she pimps (yes, quite literally!) her site for votes on flyingchair. because, she justifies, a good web log is all about how much attention you garner. Nevermind her D in her language for the web exam -- that she gets readership shows her that The Markers were wrong.
Wrong-o.
The best blogs are the blogs that are special to the people who write them. The best blogs are written for the writers, and not the readers. The funniest blogs are written by funny people, who simply are. Not by people who try to be funny to make their readers laugh, and their ratings soar. The best blogs have a subtle scent of sincerity about them. Not the foul reek of sensationalism.
To be completely honest, I take offence with the flying chair awards. It's turning thought-driven personal blogs into commercial flying-circuses for the crass entertainment of the public. It's turning ordinary people, with their funny little neuroticisms into celebrity wannabes driven by their latent - but now reawakened narcicissm.
It's destroying the point of blogging.
Anne Frank had a diary. She epitomised the spirit of diary-writing. Caught between hell, and a hot place, she chose to laugh, and write.
She didn't write for the large cine-audience that would one day watch her diary transformed into images on big-screen. She didn't even write for a literary audience that would, in days to come long after her death, applaud her frank sincerity. She didn't write for attention - in her world, attention brought death at the end of a hot, indifferent, smoking muzzle.
She wrote for herself.
She wrote because she loved to.
And therein lies the spirit of blogging.
I would never demean any of my friend's blogs by nominating them for the flying chair awards - unless they asked me to. They belong, quietly tucked away and treasured by the people who love them. And if they have hundreds upon thousands of readers... that is irrelevant. Their owners write, because they love to.
