Monday, July 24, 2006

Friendster vs Blogger

It's just about time to push myself back.

Feeding the ego has never been more fun online as it never was offline. This is mostly true if your personality had the appeal of roadkill. Not that you're ugly or anything, but your charms leave much to be desired.

What makes it fun is that you don't need to be specifically goodlooking to be interesting. Give yourself a shot captured in an angle that makes things ten times cuter than they actually are, post that as your online identifier, and your all set. You learn how to Photoshop images, you become skillful in blurring out imperfections and capturing photographs with lighting that makes your complexion noticeably fairer than it actually is.

You might have stolen other people's photographs and claimed their handsome faces as your own.

You've mastered the magic of deception in your campaign for online popularity. The people in your friends list love you for it. The people in their list, in turn, find you an attractive little package with the suggestive powers of a few faked photos, and then they want you in their list.

You then develop a steady following. Your friends list grow to a hundred, two hundred, three hundred. You might have considered opening a second Friendster account to accomodate all these people who want you in their list because like you, they also believe in the transference of cool. The more people you have in your list, the more popular you appear to become, and the more friendster accounts you log into indicate the increasing appeal of your online self. Your ego is fed with every Invitation you approve of. Your satisfaction burps with every Testimonial you allow in your list.

Your happy and sweet and all that creamy goodness in your fake little world. What makes it funny is that you're successful as a super poser in a world where appearances matter more. What makes it funnier is you allowing all this deception to bloat your ego.

Blogging makes for a different kind of gratification. It is actually the kind of satisfaction certain people approve of since it acknowledges the creative self. And by creative self, I'm referring to brain output, the intellect, and nothing, not even doctored images, beats that kind of validation. Yeah, fake pictures require both skill and creativity, but the satisfaction is still on a different playing field all the same.

And what's good about it is that there's no cheating it. You're either an interesting writer, or you're not. You're either an effective writer, or you're not. You either have something to say, or you don't. People might actually care about what you're blogging for, or they don't. Your readers might return for a second helping of what you're serving, or they don't.

It's pretty much that black and white.

See, what makes blogging a whole plenty of different is that your blog becomes an outlet of your inner bastard writer. It creeps to the attention of well-meaning readers until it arrests them and makes them stop to read more. It begins to charm its way to the hearts of certain people. They begin to comment. And then they begin to comment on the rest of your posts until they've confessed to actually liking what you're writing about. They admire you as the bastard that you really are, and then you feel much better.

As a blogger, people actually browse through what you have to say.

You sigh in relief because no matter what you do, there's just no concealing stupid. And you're not hiding anything with your writing. So you sigh more. You even grin with the understanding that you never needed to fake your output. People appreciate you in the raw.

Of course, you can still go on ahead and plagiarize somebody else's writings and claim it as your own. But seriously, where's the fun in that?

That being said, you then look at your clock and find out you've been online for more than the healthy number of hours. Do something offline. Find time to masturbate.

14 comments:

  1. yeah.

    for me, there is nothing quite so satisfying as sincere praise for writing. it literally is heartwarming, that people appreciate that you have something to say and that you say it with impact, with ummph.

    or, people could praise you for knowing how to use the Heal tool in Photoshop.

    but i disagree when you say you're not hiding anything with writing. when you hit backspace/delete, when you hesitate to say something you planned to previously--you edit yourself. but maybe it's just me, me the under-discloser.

    nice post momel.

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  2. very true and very well said.

    im actually speechless :)

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  3. Anonymous4:29 PM

    aint this a coincience. i had a similar post a few days back... hehe

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  4. thanks thanks! @john

    well hello sweetheart! @ ira. I missed you, and I'm planning to stay back. MUAH!

    I looked it up @ Ralph and yeah, same message. This happens, but there is still a difference. Cheers, and thanks for dropping by.

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  5. this post got me again, as my posts of yours in the past.

    (this goes out to john as well) i also believe that we also hide something in our blogs. the way we really look for example. but the thing is, we can never really expose everything about ourselves, not only because that will make us redundant and boring, but because we are in a continuous process of discovering and rediscovering ourselves.

    i still believe that blogging (or our blog posts, or our thoughts) is only a slice of the thick and many-layered cake that is our being. but i also believe that this slice is one of the more important ones to look at, or to taste, if one wants to estimate how delicious that little cake is.

    kudos!

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  6. oh i love to edit pictures but i dun write well, does this make me a poser? huhuhu...

    this is so sad....

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  7. cant edit pics, cant write well... tell me what am i?

    bugtongan itu!

    miss ya mellie!

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  8. does it matter...?

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  9. Well written post! I agree with you. I also agree with IE about hiding something in your blogs. No one can really tell except you.

    I hope I get better at editing photos! hehe!

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  10. we CANNOT expose EVERYTHING. even if we want to.

    even if we try.

    the blog is just a small bit of who we are. and sometimes we change so dramatically at such a fastidious pace the blog cannot even begin to follow.

    there.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous2:37 PM

    friendster and blogging are really two different things. both show something that can tell who you really are but again in "different ways"!

    agree with erik and ei.. we can open ourselves as a book but still with hidden pages. it's just the same as the sun can't shine on all side of the earth at the same time.

    but like you do. i like blogging even more. i can feel the heart and i can sense the brain of each blogger. more authentic. much true.

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  12. Again, thanks guys for still coming back although I've more stuffing up my ass than a Thanksgiving Day Turkey. Anyway, I understand that there is still an opportunity for any given writer to edit whatever he wrote down as a draft and finalize that into a piece that best manifests his rocking smartness. There's the backspace button for the blogger, and then there is still another option to publish or not to publish. Thing is, you are controlling what you are writing down, and whoever wields that power gives himself the opportunity to save face.
    You need not write everything down, and you still get to choose what other people will read from you.

    I said that you're hiding no shit with your writing. You're either interesting or you're not. People might like what you're writing about, or they don't. They might like how you write it, or they don't. I'm referring to your personality as a writer. Blogging is an intelligent hobby, and it challenges your creativity to surface. Although it can be said that you still conceal with WHAT you write, but for the most part, I'm referring to HOW you write it.

    And that's the bottomline.

    And seriously you guys, nobody noticed the masturbation bit?

    Cheers!

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  13. hi there! wow galing! i admire you for your fun and liberated writing.
    its all makes sense and I find myself agreeing for every words you spilled out. hehehe.. nakakatuwa tong article na to.. and i admit, medyo sapul ako but i never use my friendster to gain popularity coz mga 'real' friends ko lang ang ina-add ko... i try to use it to make a blog but mas efficient pla ang blogger. anyway... kudos and keep writing. :)

    ReplyDelete

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