Sunday 17 February 2013

It's just an ego trip, really. Isn't it?


So I want a blog. All of my own. Why on earth do I want to lumber myself with this ongoing responsibility? I’m not a writer by trade, I’ve got no agenda I want to push and I am certainly not doing this with a view to eventually plugging a second rate spin off book (I’m looking at you, @queen_uk). Still, I want to do a blog and I am the kind of person who gets an idea, then it niggles away until the idea is put into action, for better or worse.
So I’ve been mulling about what to write my blog about for a few weeks. I know that to encourage readership, maximise opportunities for engagement and manage expectation of audience, a blog should stick to one topic, one main area of focus. In case you hadn’t guessed from that sentence, I am ‘in marketing’. Officianado’s of great comedy will know Bill Hick’s stance on people ‘in marketing’. Re-reading the first half of this paragraph I can see his point. Anyway, I’m a digital marketing specialist, and there is already an internet full of tech blogs plagiarising Mashable and Econsultancy, so no point climbing aboard that bandwagon.
What else could I write about? Music? I love music, but most of my collection wasn’t even recorded this century (specialist area, early to mid 90’s grunge scene), so it’s not like I’ll be keeping people up to date with the latest dubstep anthems or uncovering hot new musical talent. I'll leave that to Zane Lowe to get sycophantically over excited about.
Film then. Big fan of films, love going to the cinema, have a subscription to Empire and a decent home collection of DVD and Blurays, plus a Blockbuster online account with a watched list nearly in 4 figures. Fair bet there will be the odd film review posted on here, plus childlike anticipation of each quarters new crop of celluloid thrills. Will this give me enough fodder to keep a whole Blog going all on its own though?
I could go down the route of being a bit saucy, blog on sex and relationships, maybe be flirty and a bit ambiguous about my sexuality. That kind of behaviour is best left to young Hollywood ingénue, desperate to carve their mark on cinema beyond topless murder victim #3 in a cheap horror sequel. It seems their only avenue for career advancement is to appear to be as sexually accessible by as many people as possible, especially their current interviewer. Regardless of that, I would desperately underqualified to write about sex on the internet, there are images of illicit behaviour on certain websites (so I hear) that will widen eyes more experienced than mine.
After some pondering, I came to the conclusion that, all things considered, I was best off just blogging about whatever the hell I feel like, whenever the mood takes me to post. And, to answer the question first posed, the reason for Blogging need be no more complex than the fact I enjoy writing. So there it is, I think. This is what the internet, possibly the world’s greatest invention, has come to. A massive compendium of small vanity projects from people like me, with a little bit too much spare time. But at least whilst I am on here, blogging about nothing very much, I am not sloganeering a new cringe-worthy marketing tagline.
You see what Jon’s doing there? That’s clever. He’s going for that ‘at least I'm not marketing to you’ dollar. That's a big market, good work, Jon.

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