The Search For Publicity, and Thus, Money.

Recently I recieved, in my Google reader stream, a Wired.com article telling bloggers how to increase traffic. I see several flaws with this article. I will now run through their three "tips" and give my objections, as I am a miserable bastard who hates it when others succeed, and must tear things down. Good lord. I'm a critic.

Tip 1: Do Good PR.

This tip requires networking with other bloggers, commenting on famous blogs, and linking to them. Makes some form of sense. The only problem? Who the fuck is a famous blogger that writes anything I even remotely care about? I enjoy some writers blogs, and those of my friends, but the only famed bloggers are those that specialize in some blend of gossip, news, and pictures of celebrities accidentally showing their crotches to people whilst getting in and out of cars.

Tip 2: Create a Hook.

Here they indicate that you should write a catchy title. Dear lord. Their advice is actually "Scan the tabloids at the supermarket and try to write a headline like this." So I should write a blog mocking say, the rap music industry, and title it "50 Cent Shot by Nude KKK Member!"? In all seriousness, the idea of giving things titles that aren't fitting to the content is sickening.

Tip 3: Piggyback.

I will cut and paste their advice then ream it.

"You may not be able to break a juicy story ("britney shaves head—again!") but you can pontificate on it ("inside britney's shaved head"). Your post will show up in searches for the story, and you'll hoover up the hits."

In other words, you might not be able to be the first, but you can be the most annoying. Again, the example given seems to indicate that the only worthy blogs are those covering celebrity claptrap. Who gives a shit? That's rhetorical, a lot of people obvious do, but the real question is as follows: Should one compromise the genre and content of his or her writing in order to achieve success? Moreover, should one attempt to dip his/her toe into a veritable OCEAN of people clamoring to make money off whatever young starlet accidentally showed pubes at a premiere? It does make sense, to a degree, to go where the money is. BUT and this is a HUGE BUT!

It makes no sense to compromise what you want to do without a guarantee of success. In fact, due to the sheer plethora of celebrity gossip available on the internet, it makes more sense to look ELSEWHERE for money.

These people are why I drink.

At any rate, I will continue to soldier on, attempting to figure out what people would like to read about that is not celebrity gossip and the associate detritus. Honestly, there are other things to think about in this world. Many many many other things. In fact, thinking about the fact that this seems to be all we think about, as I have done for the past few moments, might be a worthwhile endeavor. Maybe one day we can get people being creative or doing, oh I don't know, their FUCKING JOBS instead of reading this stuff.

RJC

Edited to include the Wired article: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Linkbait_Your_Blog

Enjoy. Or not. If you're reading this, you likely won't.

Relevant? Hardly.

As I contemplate the Blog format, I can't help but note that the amount of free space on the internet has really diminished the relevance of the written word. Thus I am forced to pursue publishers in order to get my really good stuff out, and this space is to be filled with my mental detritus. 

Interesting fact about the world "detritus": While most people equate it squarely with the word "debris," its actual meaning is that of the PROCESS of erosion, not the matter it leaves behind. I just learned that. From Google. Aren't you impressed by my Google-induced perspicacity? No fun story about the word. It pretty much means "mental sharpness" or "propensity for discernment"... And it's a horribly underused and over-syllabled one at that. 

Well, that's a good amount of rambling, I suppose. 

I mean the point of all of this is that people who know me will read it, I guess. But the problem is that ultimately the things I tend to talk to people I know about (a cocktail of stupidity including but not limited to the following: Guitars, Comics, Music, Writers, Toilets, Sleep, Sickness, Dying a Damp Death, etc) kinda bore me when I'm sitting by myself and writing things down. Thus I end up being overly wordy about the same shit I would be talking about normally, and ultimately probably boring the living pants off of people. 

Also, listening to the Team America soundtrack, "The End of an Act"... Writing a love song about how bad Pearl Harbor was is fucking genius. Seriously. I'm hurting. 

Fuck. 

Right, I guess that does it for now. For more information on any of the above topics, leave comments, and I will expound upon the virtues or ... uh... anti-virtues of said topic. 

RJC

11 Months later, and what do I have to show for it?

Not a whole lot, it turns out. All you plebians out there working your coffee shop jobs and squirting liquids into testtubes might have a leg up on me monetarily, but I have found my calling!

And no, it's not being a pundit. I wanted that for a while but found that it doesn't quite work to just stand outside the NewsCORP building in NYC yelling opinions. In fact they sent quite a nice young man named Daniel outside to escort me out of sight into a small black room, where I was given a Wendy's double cheeseburger and a shot of gin (homemade in the bathtub, I believe!) in exchange for my silence.

Fat lot of good that did 'em. Tasty though.

No, my calling is to help people, and I will start by resurrecting this edifice of shame that one calls a blog, remolding it in my Easter-Island-Head-esque image, and foisting it upon your unprepared psyches. But someone's gotta bust you out of your every day dime-an-hour existence, don't they? Your sad, lonely, pathetic, flaccid, magenta existence?

Too much.

I promise I won't always be that cruel, America. I'm just still in a bad mood from parking.

RJC