squidpants

So I'm no blog expert. However, I have been reading them for awhile and have been getting steadily more and more annoyed by so-called famous blogs and their mannerisms. Below are some things that annoy me. And I have been guilty of some of these, but that doesn't mean they aren't still annoying. (Blog names used as examples, usually.)

- Calling another blogger by the name of their blog. "I hung out with Steve Coolfer, Jim Stereogum, and DJ Nick Catchdubs spun some good stuff." First off, that's not their last name. And I don't care if you hung out with another blogger, or even if you hung out with a non-blogger. Lots of people have blogs, if I mentioned all of my friends with blogs in my blog, I'd probably never stop typing. This might be OK if you are actually trying to advertise the other blogs, but if you're namedropping the famous bloggers you hang out with, I am not impressed.

- Shortening those names even further. Ultragrrl is already an alias, you don't need to make a nickname for an alias. And if you do, maybe your alias is too long.

- Abbreviating people's names. The Wonkette's real name is Ana Marie Cox, not AMC. AMC is a car company from the 70s and a theater chain. Are you in that much of a hurry that you can't type "Cox" or "Ana Marie" instead of AMC?

- And as a corollary, just mentioning the name of another blogger as a link, as if we should know who that person is by name alone (especially as a list):
"Also at the Bloc Party show were Tim, Karen, Lindsay, Sam and Sarah." Zzz.

- Inventing/co-opting words and phrases and then using them incessantly. "stizz," "so best," "evs" (as in "worst evs")

- Ads for your DJ set, or even worse, for other bloggers' DJ sets. If you want to mention that you're DJing somewhere, fine, but a big picture of the ad is annoying. And I couldn't care less if Ultragrrl is DJing somewhere under a clever punny DJ name. (That being said, I have and will continue to go to some bloggers' DJ sets, and Ultragrrl is pretty hot.)

- General snarky breathlessness. Coming up with new and convoluted ways to say something sucks might be fun, but it gets very old, very fast. And honestly, how many of these new CDs are really that good? Will you still listen to them in three months, when no one talks about them anymore? How do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?

- Using phrases in other languages in your posts. It's annoying in books, it's still annoying in blogs.

- Celebrating your blog titles and taglines. "Look how clever I am with my pun or obscure song reference!" Then again, there are only so many possible blog names out there, which is why mine is squidpants and not something like andrewsblog.blogspot.com.

- And along those lines, you're not fooling anyone with a self-deprecating blog title. I think every blogger secretly (or not so secretly) wants attention, which is why blogs exist. Don't try and hide it.

- Cutesy title graphics. I want to cut the top of my monitor off so I can't see the banner image on the Wonkette's blog.

- Emotional crap. this doesn't happen very much on the famous blogs, but rants about your emotions bore me to tears.

- Complaining about other groups of people. I guess it's part of the hipster code to complain about suburbanites, bankers, college kids, and so on at the shows you go to, but they're allowed to be there too. Not everyone is as cool as you are. And honestly, complaining about college kids? How asinine is that? I'm sure you, famous blogger, sat in your dorm room studying and chugged beer on your futon for your entire college career, right? Come on. Plus most of these bands you foam over are probably in or just out of college. (example)

- And finally, thank you to those people who don't do those things. To those people that do some of this stuff, it doesn't mean I don't like you. It just means I might skip that entry.

And when it comes down to it, I suppose a lot of these have to do with who these blogs are meant for - do the famous bloggers write their blogs for their friends, or for anybody who happens to stumble across them? I'm sure most of the famous types have tons of readers who have never met them, which I guess is why the personalization annoys me. But they could argue that they write their blogs for a small group of friends, and lots of random people just happen to read them too. Do what you want, but I'm still annoyed.