Blog Snobbery

An expertly written piece doesn't mean anything. If its polished, with spot-on adjectives and forever changing sentence structure, it doesn't always mean it has substance, or its interesting. I (capital H) Hate that. I hate reading articles in the newspaper that make one profound point and then fluff for another 3 paragraphs. Its like giving someone one bite of a brownie and then ten bites of gelatin hoping that the great taste of the brownie will last long enough to make the gelatin seem edible. It makes it seem like whoever wrote it, didn't care, or didn't want to write it, or really thought absolutely nothing past that one killer point.

I have friends who are blog snobs. Verbal Jocks. Their writing is impeccable, it has clarity of thought and natural flow and logical conclusions. It's mind-boggling and kind of beautiful if you're into grammar and Bigger Things. Intellectual-skin-shows of sorts. They're terribly smart and they know it.  I don't really care, I'll subscribe and unload my giant truck of compliments, which they will then nonchalantly ask me to place in the backyard along with the other 3 million giant barges and airplanes stuffed with praise for their writing. They deserve it.

I have found that a lot of my friends are phenomenal writers, but most are unaware save for the BlogSnobs. Because of this, they somehow feel like they have earned the right to pass judgement (read, completely nonconstructive criticism) on other unaware writers? The Blog Snobs can be extremely critical of other people's writing. They have told me before that certain blogs are crappy, or certain people 'can't write for shit.' 'they don't write about anything relevant', 'its completely moronic', 'its subpar for their age' and my personal favorite BlogSnob insult 'its a grammatical abomination' (LOL?) Apparently Blog Snobs can say a lot of non-impeccable things when they don't have time to edit their thoughts and plug then full of SAT words to sponge away the condescension.

I don't think I'm a superstar of a writer. I think I can write pretty decently if I work hard at it and read and edit and reread. Most of the things I post on this blog are barely coherent because I'm not really bothered enough to dot my i's and cross my t's. Further, I'm not exactly interested in breaking my thoughts down into bullet points so that I can then sponge away the extra emotion and clean this page up a little bit. I think the same is true for a lot of bloggers. Everyone blogs differently, which I respect. I once posted about my curiosity at a friend who only posts about current events, or video games, but nothing personal ever. He probably wonders why I write so much useless crap about how I feel, when its not even a little useful to anyone else. Sometimes I wonder that too.

I don't write for other people to read as much as I write because I have something I want to say. Right now, I'm in the middle of pausing my blog-snob rant to go on a tangent about my personal blogging style. Why? Because I feel like saying it not because I feel like anyone needs to read it. Not everyone's blog is a shrine dedicated to their elite writing skills, some blogs are space to say the things people struggle to say outloud, or the things that are too unsuited for conversation. (like this rant?) What I like about blogs is that they can be raw. Where else can you read a real uncensored account of what anyone thinks? I love blogs where people talk about what they've been doing, because usually its almost exotic to me. Even daily life. Planting flowers? Getting engaged? Buying vintage shoes? High School? They seem pretty basic, but I don't do any of those things! I feel like I'm peeking into an alternate reality because in theory, I know what those things are, but in practice I really know nothing about what the experience is like. Sure, I've been to high school, but no two people have the same experience, or the same perspective. I think we should appreciate that, and so everyone's voice should be given equal importance.

Interestingly, sometimes I skip over the BlogSnob posts in my GoogleReader completely. That's because sometimes their content is so impersonal to me that I'm not particularly excited to read it. Most days, I can appreciate the flawlessness of their writing technique, but its the same way I can appreciate the clarity and logical progression of my textbooks. Twenty thousand mouthfuls of gelatin interspersed with the rare brownie. Given the choice, I will read the 'moronic', 'irrelevant', 'subpar', 'grammatical abominations' first because at the least they are fresh and not cut and dried. It upsets me that just because you may be a better writer than most, you think its okay for you to deride other people. Just because your 'crap' is properly punctuated and has topic sentences doesn't mean its better than my 'crap' or anyone else's 'crap'. If I executed my crap like a college essay, and reduced my emotions to grammatical niceties, maybe I would be as cool as you. I'm sorry I don't think in bullet points and my blog posts don't go through middle school brainstorm-draft-edit bullshit. It doesn't mean that what I think, or what I have to say is any less important than anything you may think or say.

Writing is a skill, but perhaps reading is too. Could it be that valuing a piece of writing as a form of expression is a learned skill? Probably.  I guess that would mean that maybe they don't suck at writing blogs, maybe you just suck at reading them.
If you're a BlogSnob and I've just offended you, oh well. Use your impeccable language to bitch me out, I would love to read that too. =)