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May 03, 2005
Discuss Disgust
In the days of yore, blogging was simply something promising. You could write about things which interest you and you would hope sometimes that people with differing view points or agreed with what you wrote would leave a comment or two. Friendships could be formed this way and you could get to know one or two good kindred souls along the way. Note that this came at the tail end of the mIRC and ICQ craze, when superficiality cheapened the promise of a great tool for further human interaction.
Most of all, it gave those who wanted to write or spew their guts out a great channel to publish their thoughts. During those early days, there were people who religiously scanned the vast Internet for interesting sites, articles and stories and logged them in on their weblogs. From this, online journaling evolved into what we have today. From just over sixty blogs listed on SG Blogs!, a now-defunct site which listed all Singapore blogs, we now have thousands upon thousands of people who are or claim to be bloggers.
My site was probably the sixtieth or seventyish blog to be listed on SG Blogs!. Even now, I could still remember the rush of adrenaline into my system when I found my old site listed. Even now, I could still recall the excitement I had when I visited other blogs in the bludgeoning local scene. Those were the days before the media knew a lot about the blogging phenomenon or before the hype got into where it is today. Arguably Singapore’s “most popular” blogger might not even have heard about blogging and our most famous political satirist was still updating his stuff using a basic html template.
Greymatter was the rage then. It was simple to upload, configure and install. What killed it were the bugs which caused too many an “Internal Server Error” message. Someone stumbled on Moveable Type and I had been a staunch user ever since.
Paralleling many things in our modern era, blogging started off as a tool brimming with promises. We had blog meets. We made friends with whom we admired their writing skills and/or ability to express their thoughts. We met up with people who were as sincere as they were on their respective sites. Sure, there were some pleasant and unpleasant surprises along the way, but it was great back then.
However, like ICQ and mIRC before it, some others saw it as a great tool for something else. They had different ideas and then their ideals seeped in. As blogging became more popular, the proliferation of sites took off.
Cybersex. We read about this in the papers about how people were doing it. Sex sold, sex sells and sex will continue to sell. It seemed as though the “liberal” approach adopted by those trashy magazines had filtered through its ideals to many. Most things sexual were published in these mags and devoured by the paying masses. This ideal, inevitably, got regurgitated in many forms. Blogging is one of them.
Call me old fashioned, but during my days as a wee kid in polytechnic, cracking dirty jokes (not even deadly, serious X-rated stuff) got me one or two looks of disgusts from my female classmates. Mags were still very much talking about fashion sense, the latest brand of cosmetics and the obligatory “Dear Aunt Aggie, my boyfriend / girlfriend left me…” sob story. Joe and Mark were the main men on the Morning Express. Glenn was only a newbie on Perfect 10.
Thanks to the advent of Photoshop, we have our first Singapore Blogging Lady, who stands as the icon of our local blogging scene. I wonder what people from the Padres, Pagans, Oddfellows or those great local indie bands would feel if a Britney Spears-upstart appeared on the local music scene and started to outstrip the sales of all these indie bands put together just because of the way they Photoshopped her body just to make her look extremely sexy and pander to the tastes of many hormone-infested masses out there, not the music she wrote or the voice she had. Now, we have the best (or most popular) Singapore site which publishes the webmistress’s thoughts in its full, unadulterated and uncensored glory, which actually reads like a watered-down version of some trashy female mag.
Frankly speaking, other than the initial disgust I felt, decidedly, I tried to steer clear of this and was content to skirt around the issue. Her rise to stardom (and the suspect inflation of egos) was phenomenal. I thought this was just a one-off case.
I visited some sites which I never visited today and this somehow led me to a conclusion. Replication of a theme or idea is the best form of flattery but suddenly, it seemed as though more and more females are coming out of their closets (I was about to type “corsets” here). In almost all of the new sites I visited, these ladies openly talked about stuff which, only a decade ago, the trashy mags dared not publish. Then, I wonder to myself if, in this day and age, the lure of sex and the promise of popularity (catalyzed by the advent of Photoshop), got everyone jumping on the bandwagon. Or that you can be popular as long as you spew some antisocial rhetoric on your blog by ranting about others who were brave (or stupid) enough to cross your paths. Throw in expletives in font size 28 (bold) on your site, and you have a great site made with the prospect of a great following. As long as you have the potential to spark off a blogging witch-hunt (reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition), you know that you have gotten to the heady heights enjoyed by the resident most popular Singapore blogger.
Perhaps there is a reason why those netiquette lessons never really took off. Perhaps there is a basis to the comments uttered by our friends in the education industry about the decline in terms of manners and morals amongst our younger generation. In fact, they are numb to things which they should care about and care about things which they should feel apathetic towards.
And just because some people decided to take the risk, it certainly does not mean that you can push the unmarked but in no ways imagined boundaries further. They fired two bloody shots and suddenly everyone went into hiding, before they found out that the demand for hiding spots outstripped the supply. The Internet might seem like a free-for-all, but underestimating or disregarding the wonders of technology is perilous. So in the aftermath, some decided to enlighten the others about how they should protect themselves. Before long, a huge mountain was collectively created when in reality, it could well have been only a puny anthill. If they did their homework diligently, this would never have happened. If they observed long and hard, we should be more careful with our words or find alternative ways of expressing them.
Or are we deluding ourselves into believing that we should take the calmness and freedom of the Internet for granted?
There are reasons why I never use my real name when I blog (unless I feel fearless or peerless). There are reasons why I say the things I think I should say and not say the things I should not say. There are reasons why I have vehemently refused to have my photo plastered on any site for all and sundry to puke, admire or whatever. There are reasons why I write the way I write.
Why is it that some out there just cannot think a little harder when it comes to saying something that *might* be wrong or sensitive?
Delusions are simply our greatest enemy sometimes.
Posted by D W at May 3, 2005 04:55 PM
Comments
hear hear.
Posted by: a l at May 4, 2005 09:04 AM
her blog is very popular because she writes about things that pple can relate to. whereas some blogs tend to be too high-brow. it's the same with magazines. if u write esoteric stuff, expect ur readership to be low.
and besides, her blog reads like a TV drama. which is really entertaining if u could push aside ur prejudices and enjoy them.
Posted by: 2 at May 11, 2005 02:43 AM
what i wanted to say but didn't know the words for
Posted by: fhope at May 13, 2005 04:46 AM