Some foreign friends made the observations that M’sian/S’porean blogs tend to be a lot more over-the-top that the rest in blogosphere. These friends are occasional visitors to the more “prominent” blogs in this region, and they arrive at the conclusion that we seem like a people that love to bask in global spotlight. That prompted me to look closer at those blogs and I realized what they said is true. At least, true of those bloggers. Of course, observations such as these are actually pretty limiting and are not representative of every member of the mentioned nationalities.

Those people strive on popularity count. The higher their daily visitor stats and/or number of comments are, the more eager they are to blog. The more controversial, the better. The more melodramatic, the better. They are so full of “dramas” that they could be stars of their own primetime soap operas. Of course, some are real aggravating or exciting events in their lives, which the bloggers have the rights to blog about. But there are some that are so ludicrous and exaggerating in their contents, you would think they’re just blogging for the sake of blogging to gain more attention and hopefully win themselves some kind of award, like Popular Blog of the Year or something.

Because blogs are usually open for all to see (unless you’re JOURNALING with Livejournal), it’s best to keep your drama at a minimum. People may be sympathetic, but when you go overboard with your sob stories and tall tales, you may get undesirable reactions from your readers. It’s a risk that you have to take. Well, you could always tell them, F*CK OFF if you don’t like my rants, but unfortunately some people just love the dramas and they’ll keep coming back to diss you, just for the heck of it. If you can take it gracefully, that’s fine. But some people got so consumed by their blogging activities that they feel the pressing need to close down their blogs once things got out of hand.

That’s a really pitiful circumstance, for one to resort to that. I would think a blog/journal as a reflection of oneself and surroundings. Therefore, I would also like to think that this is where I could be who I am really and this is where I could express my inner thoughts and my personal opinions. I don’t have to fabricate stuff to encourage readership. I don’t have to be a gossip column, just to encourage participation from others. I post what I feel like posting, I post what is of interest to me at a particular point in time. I can post the serious and I can post the mundane. I can post about what’s hot now, and I can post about something obscure that nobody heard of. Audience participation will come naturally, when they think a particular entry deserve to be discussed.

I’d rather be a productive journal-er than a popular blogger.