Wednesday, September 14, 2005

my leaky tap

urgh.

That's exactly how I feel now, with my nose all blocked up. Not by emotion mind you, but through the excessive secretion of mucus.. i.e. the DARN flu. On a (not) completely unrelated sidenote, what's the difference between a cold and a flu? *perplexed bimbo look* haha.

I've also taken to sleeping at 3-4am.. which is doing wonders for my pet flu bugs. Why? I don't really know myself.

Friday, friday, friday. Nottingham seems so far away now, so distanced from my happy and contented reality. Friday looms towards me like an evil mist. I have so much to do, so much to pack, so many people to meet and say my (teary) goodbyes to before I leave. The inertia is great and consuming.

The silence of the night, peppered by bits of white noise. Such is my world, my little impenetrable world; where nothing and no one can intrude. Me and my music, me and my mac, me and my wierd nonsensical thoughts. No explanations needed. I like it this way.

Ah well. All that is good must come to an end.. till next year that is. =)

Vic.

insatiable at 2:41 AM

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Saturday, September 10, 2005

The thin red line

Xiaxue (www.xiaxue.blogspot.com) has recently decided to take a hiatus from her blog, because people have taken to not only insulting her, but also her friends and family.

Honestly, I don't know what to make of it. The contradictions run too deep and there is no satisfactory method of weighing the pros and cons of being a celebrity blogger.

Its ironic how her readers made her who she is today, one of the foremost bloggers in the Singapore blogsphere, through continual readership and interest. Yet, it is also them who have caused her so much distress and emotional trauma by sending hate mail and hacking into her blogger account amongst other things. Of course, her readers should be divided into those who care, those who hate and those who are there for the free literature and entertainment (me).

Somehow, a blog started off as a place where you could say anything and everything. It was YOUR space, to design and fill, coupled with the "freedom" and "anonymity" of the internet. But along the way, bloggers (due to their inherent exhibitionist nature) have had to tred on a very fine line between (a) baring their souls, (b) trying not to offend anyone and (c) keeping their readers happy.

For example, if I said today that I hated say person X, because he is short, fat and ugly. It might be that I've had a bad run-in with X and just wanted to vent my frustrations, or it might have deeper implications with regards to my already bad relationship with X. However, a reader might think that I am superficial, judgmental and prejudiced against short fat and ugly people for shallow reasons. What a reader comments on is only what he reads, without any knowledge of the peripheral circumstances.

What Adri (www.popagandhi.com) has always tried to emphasize is that she is not exactly the same persona as the voice of her blog. As the word persona suggests, it is a reflection of how the blogger wants to showcase him/herself. It is fun and completely in line with the "anything goes" idea of a blog, and cyberspace in general, for a blogger to be larger than life on his blog.

I applaud Xiaxue for her courage in writing as herself, and not changing her style to suit her readers. Her appeal is the girl next door feel, not too pretty, not too skinny, a little tomboyish, vain, rude and "ah lian". In all, someone every heartlander should be able to relate to. Seriously, some people should take the log out of their eyes before criticising her on the speck of dust in hers. Besides, she probably has friends in high places who can track you down by just your IP address. We have all witnessed the unreliability of the cloak of anonymity the Internet purports to provide (hello, the fact that there is an IP ADDRESS???).

Perhaps readers should be more diplomatic about their comments and opinions. It is more than fine, and even encouraged, that readers should have comments about the ideas put forth in a post or in the blog as a whole. However, some readers abuse this privilege (yes, privilege. How often is it that you can discuss ideas with a famous writer?) and start attacking the writer and not the work. In Xiaxue's case, they have taken it one step further and have attacked Xiaxue's friends and brother as well. This is despicable. Some people think they can hide behind the anonymity of cyberspace not only as bloggers (cue the Acidflask incident) but also (when their own blogs do not garner enough attention) as readers who leave rude and unsavory comments on popular blogs and hope to ride on the popularity of those blogs. Perhaps it is time for a "Leave comments on blogs responsibly" campaign.

It can be argued that these bloggers have dug their own graves by choosing to be in the limelight and baring their souls in the process. They could shut down their blogs any time they wanted with just a few simple clicks. Perhaps having a percentage of your readers hate you is just an inevitable by-product of popularity and envy.

In a nutshell, I would like to emphasize the dichotomy between idealism (where readers would leave mature and responsible comments) and realism (where there are all sorts and logic and rationale are not the pre-requisites to neither owning a computer nor being human). Also, the contradiction between the ideology of having a space where you can be whoever you are, and letting the readers see that; yet suffering the backlash and abuse from being yourself.

I could debate this with myself till the cows came home and not achieve a satisfactory answer. It is like asking oneself how Bush got re-elected, or how many stars there are in the universe. As cynical as it may sound, blogging, as with everything else, is about toeing the line and making sure you don't get caught with your pants down.

insatiable at 12:59 AM

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