why do you blog
Bhaktas,
For a change its not that I-am-so-smart boy genius but your favorite friend, guide and philosopher, Baba Bangali here. Over the weeks this so called witty-blogger has been putting me to face all his awkward questions for which I am forced to answer. While you laugh at the idiocy of my replies, I keep researching on improving my impromptu skills. So now my friends let us put him in the firing line and see how he rankles at my acerbic questions as I wield the mic.
Bhakta, When did you start blogging and why?
Well Baba, It was in 2004 a week after my birthday. A friend had begun blogging and I just wanted to do the same for the was hep, cool and totally unheard of those days. The very idea of posting your writings out there for the world to read was fascinating and restricted to geek circles.
So it was basically to fit in and earn respect among your geek circles?
When you ask me bluntly, I have to agree. It was cool and chicks dug bloggers back then for we were a rare race. We had blogger-meets in coffee shops and pizza places with a ‘Bloggers Meet’ placard on the table. It was priceless to see the look on peoples faces when they knew that a group of strangers were sitting at a table and discussing geeky stuff at the top of their voices.
Bhakta, It comes across that you were desperate for attention and wanted to stand out in a crowd.
Look Baba, you cant pick away at me like this as I have always been soft on you. Now that you have, let me answer you as well. I was naive and without a sense of direction. My blog
was
just a
reflection of my thoughtsMy blog was just a reflection of my thoughts. Short crisp and immature posts most of which I deleted when I migrated over from Livejournal. This space therefore has only a few posts from 2004 which I found worth keeping.
I like the definition, but then I don’t see any thoughts now-a-days.
I actually still post my thoughts and views only that they are hidden in the posts. Earlier they were more like in the face types, but now with more people reading my blog you need to look between the lines. I somehow don’t like to pour my heart out but nevertheless I still manage to get my message across.
Bowing to reader preferences? Or are you just a lot more cautious?
Its not as easy as you say Baba. I more feel like a columnist of a newspaper that is read by only 50 people. Even though it’s a small number people still religious keep checking this space and refreshing their feed readers for a post from me. I get scraps on orkut or get pinged on GTalk for absence of over a week from my blog. I am now answerable to my readers, I feel responsible to reply to their comments and guilty for prolonged absence. So when there are so many people following me, I no longer feel like writing about how I hurt a fingernail in the gym. I may dress it up as how in our bid to be macho we overlook small injuries even though we want to squirm and scream! The message is the same, only that the latter is funnier and more readable.
So you no longer write for yourself, it’s governed by readers choice eh? A readability filter?
Damn! I hate you Baba, especially when you’re right. I love my readers, I really do. I love it when they add their own tidbits in the comments to my post. It gives me great pleasure when some of my posts bring a smile to their faces. I like making people laugh, I like to seem them happy and if my blog does it then so be it. Every news item I read, every billboard I see, every interesting person I meet or whacky conversation I have, I look for bloggable bits on the blogability indexI look for bloggable bits on the blogability index.
Bhakta, You remind me of a stand up artist, are you turning into one?
In a way it’s true for I like making people smile. I keep my eyes and ears open for new things to write about. I look for inspiration int he weirdest places and I have no qualms about it. I don’t feel like a performer for my post are not artificial. I don’t write just about anything and everything, it’s only things that I can relate to and take a stand. So though every post seems to be catering to the readers tastes, they still have a bit of me and my views if you look between the lines like I said before.
Interesting, But then what’s with the shayari and poems? I’m trying to read between the lines
Ha ha, Glad you brought it up. They actually started of as a few bits I wrote for friends to woo the opposite sex. I gradually found out that I was pretty good at that stuff if not great. Now there was nothing between the lines but just that I could write such stuff even without harboring any feelings. You can call it creative license or just random crap, but my fingers would fly on the keyboard when I wrote stuff like akela, tu, kash, tum and aise hi. They aren’t great but they did the job for my buddies. I soon began writing couplets and some of them did make sense, it continues even now.
So Bhakta, what’s this fascination with movies?
It began with my angst against the weekends reviews in our newspaper. I at times felt that i could do a better job. It infact did work, as a few web portals did contact me to do reviews for them. Movies is more like a pastime and I didn’t like monetizing it back then. I just love the movies and the whole business of film making. I stand up and applaud when its exemplary and at the same time am caustic when they are mediocre. I just love watching bad movies and it’s not just because they are fodder for my blog. I started of with some bad luck as I ran into a string of horrible films, but then I pushed myself to see a few more. It later turned into an obsession and I find them far more entertaining and laugh at their shortcomings. I know it’s horrible but I like to celebrate ineptitude in cinema!
I’m assuming you love your statistics?
Yea I do. I love to check my feedburner stats and see that number increase every week. I like to see the blogstats in my wordpress dashboard. I rankle when they fall in a particular week and when my monthly views dip below 1500. I take pride in analyzing my Google Analytics traffic and the search terms that my blog ranked up for. I feel like a mini-celebrity and hey there’s no harm in an ego-booster.
Now can I have my mic back! I’ve had enough of you…..
(This post started of as a comment to Lekhni but then she asked me to do a longer version)
Lol, i started blogging because it was orey cool and talked about in the papers. I started in 2005 (my 10th) I reckon. Blogging got me new friends, a different circle, some people who actually understood what I said, and I had absolutely no inhibitions in being myself.
Lavanya Unleashed!
🙂
PS – Isnt it a great feeling? Recognition (even if its from some ota blogger)? And the fact that someone laughed genuinely at something you said? And something else I’ve noticed is that, as you grow as a blogger, you begin weeding out your readers….although none of us admit it 😛 🙂
Great post machi!
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me: it surely is a nice feeling! So am I part of the circle?
Actually, I cnt have that celebrity feeling, cause I’ve blocked googlebot from my site. Office-la blog paththi kelvi pattanga, sangu!!
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me: your content isn’t indexed but the links surely are
Sooper wonly! Every one has a why-i-started-blogging story. After a while the traffic and comments actually matter much as some might deny it. Ore the cool interview anol 🙂
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me: nandri hain. I’d like to hear your story even if it’s via GTalk. Coz you had a blog even before we met.
Nice idea to make it an interview. I wrote a similar one on the journey of a blogger. I started mid 2005 and the earlier posts(if not now) were definitely puke worthy.
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me: it definitely is a journey and you mature as a writer. I see my older posts and go ‘What was I thinking then?’
I was told blogging is self indulgent;helps everyone turn articulate;an ego trip; helps people (PYTs esp) connect, build community networks etc.
But there are some fantastic blogs coming out of conflict areas, soldiers undergoing hardships, refugees and writers that are truly pathbreaking in their content.
Your blogs may be all of the reasons you’ve cited but they are engaging and witty and youthfu and takes on kitsch really well- if it lands you a chick too, i’d say it’s a winner.
Best wishes always.
P.S:Can I date baba bangali? (is he as old as the hills)
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me: It starts of as being self-indulgent but once the network grows you don’t write for yourself. It’s like the tramp who sang by the road. He sang whatever he wished to, but once a crowd gathered around him, He sang whatever they requested. I’ve read some blogs about guys scaling the himalayas or a group of scientists in antarctica. They are more like daily logs. but very interesting.
ps: Baba bangali is honored and blushing like a 16yr old now!
I’m glad you wrote this. I find myself agreeing with nearly all that you said (okay, I don’t Orkut scraps but I am not on Orkut :)) But “I more feel like a columnist of a newspaper that is read by only 50 people.” , the part about loving the feeling of making people laugh, the bit about looking at newspaper articles with a “bloggable” eye.. all that is so true for me too..
And then I wonder whether I am taking my blog too seriously..if I don’tpost for a few months, or if I delete my blog, will anybody really notice? I would hate to know the answer 🙁
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me: you can take it from me, this guy surely will notice
I started blogging because I just wanted to keep a journal of thoughts as I was going through a mentally taxing period in my life. I made it public only to find out what others thought, and if anyone else had the same questions I did. I still write only about what I want to write, mainly because I have been blogging only for 3 months and I have few readers, but I do cater more to the majority demographic of my readers by throwing in some inside-jokes on culture. Readers are a perfect example of the uncertainty principle – you can not observe something without changing it ever so slightly. But it is a good change, as long as one doesn’t lose their primary objective in the process and turn their blog into a device to just build virtual popularity.
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me: bang on! The essence is to maintain what you stand for.
I personally think the only reason to blog is to write what you want. The moment you stat pandering to an audience your blog looses its usefulness. But, then different people have different perspectives.
I personally have no special feeling towards my readers, especially considering all of them are utterly atturely.
Hell, I feel my style has been cramped, esp. w.r. to xg, cauze of my readers. I don’t pollambify as much about her as I actually should.
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me: I’ve never told you this before, but I love your blog. It’s straight from the heart! I still write what I want, only that they are not bullet points anymore and dressed up!
Couldn’t agree with u more!! As a newbie in the blogosphere, my blog is still in the state of nascence. I hope it grows to be as popular as the stalwarts, with the blessings of the Baba!![;)]
My pranamam to His Holiness, Baba Bongs!! [;)]
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me: heavy traffic prapthirasthu
Hmm…good one this. I started blogging in private – you know the disappointments and jazz 😉 I’m a very talkative person and super enthu about nothing, so people just do NOT understand when I’m upset. They take it as a joke. Sometimes, they are too confident about me which unnerved and I thought a blog was perfect to rant it out. And boy do I do that or what!! Then my uncle said in one of my ‘I will save the world’ speech moments that I should start writing about stuff that troubles me about the world. And that became the public one 🙂 Of course, now all that troubles me about the world is my eyebrows 😉 But well, that is my story. You said you like it when there are tidbits about your readers 😛 So, you got your blogesque comment!
Oh, I deleted the private blog as a whim. But, lately I want to start all over again because sometimes I wish I was anonymous 🙂 Mebbe I should!
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me: ha ha! nandri nandri…
Oh yes, most definitely, vatta-thukku welcome.
🙂
Interesting comments here, I liked maami’s, “if the blog lands you a chick, its a winner”. Lol, I know one of those.
😉 But i shall maintain konjam decency etc, n not ollarify.
Thanks for the CS nerd tip about the links. Sigh, ennadhaan irundhaalum enakku publicity na liking-ey illa pa.
And Ok called you an attu, btw.
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me: Chick? I donno whou you talkingsu yebbouttu 😉
Ayyoa orre humility, thangala.. Sowcar Janaki wil loose to you.
Wats an attu?
uiyo, alayudhu paaru alpam. 😛
Its just that I know a guy who’s blog landed him a chick.
And yes yes, modesty is such a rarity these days.
Attu-na ennanu theriyaadha? how did you pass your 12th I say! Neelam oru tamizhan-a? Waste!
Attu = international tamil word for “sappayo sappa figure”
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me: guys are not ‘figures’ so that must be directed to you!