What the Fuck is a Blog?

Welcome to the Adventures of Trippy Bongstockings! If you had told me five or six years ago that I would be writing a blog, I would have asked you one simple question . . .  what the fuck is a blog? 

Carnies vs. Bloggers

Fast forward a few years. By that point I had heard of blogs and I wasn't impressed. The more I heard about the wonders of technology and new media, the more suspicious I became.  I appreciated the Internet for its educational applications, but anything else elicited a powerful combination of feelings that ranged from distrust bordering on paranoia, self-righteousness bordering on zealotry, unfounded yet deep-seated resentment, and pure unadulterated rage.

I would promptly dismiss nearly every new electronic device and technological advance as:

1. a passing fad (examples include DVDs and MP3s )

2.  government conspiracy (The Man's craft way of invading our privacy under the guise of scientific/technological progression - you don't fool me, Whitey!)

3. a strategic corporate advertising campaign designed to drive consumerism and trap people into a lifetime of buying shit they don’t need

Needless to say, I wasn’t inspired to read a blog, let alone write one of my own. Even the word itself turned me off. Blog just sounds stupid. Blog doesn’t exactly ring with purpose and professionalism. You don’t tell people you’re staying home to blog in the same tone you would convey your intentions to work on your manifesto or finish your dissertation. The title for a person who blogs – a blogger – doesn’t help matters. Blogger evokes about as much prestige as “carny,” only with less professional accountability and zero mystique or charm.

Since I’ve been told I have a tendency to be a judgmental dick about such things, I was curious to know how others viewed bloggers. I had a hunch that I wasn’t the only one who questioned the literary merits of blogging, so I did a keyword search and quickly found that I wasn’t the only blogger hater out there. In fact, I found plenty of company from the fine folks at www.urbandictionary.com, the people’s dictionary. Curious to see if my theory about carnies being superior to bloggers held up in the (cyber) courtroom of public opinion, I found some choice definitions for the word “carny.”

Carny

1. A carnival worker, often running the mechanical rides, who likes to hit on teenage or younger females. They are generally not clean people and will buy alcohol in exchange for companionship

  That carny is sooo skanky

2.  One with extremely and frighteningly small hands who smells of cabbage. Usually found hanging about the circus.

I was standing in line for peanuts, and this carny jacked my wallet! I knew it was one of those circus freaks because I distinctly smelled rotting cabbage!

Look at you, you carny bastard.

3. One who smells like A-1 sauce and piss 

                              OR

One who fills the back of a pick up truck (with A-1 sauce and piss) and swims in it

I went to the carnival where I saw a carny eating rocks and   drinking piss.

While these definitions don't paint the most flattering picture, being a carny seems positively noble when compared with blogger. 

Blogger

1. Term used to describe anyone with enough time or narcissism to document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives.

2. A person with a laptop, an ax to grind, and their virginity

3. A rancid ass cheese who fantasizes that someone will read his/her pathetic shit. Who gives a fuck what they think about anything? They're geeks who jack off with visions of their geometry teacher dancing in their pointy little heads.

     I went to crap a gnarly turd, but a blogger came out instead.

4. An Internet diary writer. Or more accurately, a whining, insecure, sympathy-craving, self-indulgent, self-important, over privileged 'feeling meh' scum of the Internet/universe.

'Welcome back to my blog, fellow blogger!!! Today I'm feeling like the world is terrible and I just can't seem to find my place in it. Also, I think everyone hates me. I'm feeling a bit meh tbh. And to top it all, I think I'm coming down with a snuffly-cold!'

5. A person who blogs as an outlet for narcissism and bad taste.

There was a time when America had intellectuals, but now all we've got are bloggers.

6. Bloggers are greasy-haired geeks who stink of sour ass cheese and pus breath due to their lack of tooth brushings and flossing which has led them down the road to gum disease.

Hey, look at that blogger, stinking of bad breath and sour ass cheese... what a useless geek!

Hey blogger! Merry Christmas! Here's some soap to wash your sour, cheesy ass with and a toothbrush to brush your green, pus-covered teeth with... If you use these, maybe you can get a date.

The definitions continued in this manner for several pages, vindicating my suspicions about bloggers. On a good day, blogger only adds to the indignity of the word blog and rounds out the picture of an incredibly self-indulgent waste of time. Dumb, yes, but hardly dangerous. However, blogger also evokes a darker, more deviant image in my mind . . . I think “blogger” and I see an individual who’s not allowed within 30 feet of a school zone, not because he molested anyone, mind you, but because of his penchant for chronic public masturbation, perhaps while donning some kind of kid-friendly costume. I see a blogger as someone who dresses up like Frosty the Snowman around the holidays and pleasures himself from afar.

Blogging and Flogging (the Dolphin)

Going with the whole stream of consciousness theme of the entry, I searched the recesses of my mind to try and ascertain where I came up with this. The best explanation I can offer is that “blog” rhymes with “flog” and “flogging” is a term sometimes used for masturbation. Where the disturbing holiday ensemble comes into play is a bit more difficult to put my finger on, but the expression “flogging the dolphin” makes me think of Flipper, the adorable and wildly exploited TV porpoise of yore. While I never feared Flipper, I recently learned that I should have. A few months ago I saw a special called “The Cutest Animals That Will Kill You.” It turns out that dolphins are sick rapists! No joke! Many people have been raped during those goddamn Swim with the Dolphins excursions. Don’t let that grin fool you! The only reason they’re smiling is because they’re about to BONE YOU!!! 

Flipper the Rapist

(Where I made the leap from Flipper and his pod having their way with you to a guy dressed as a giant snowman whacking off to kids ice skating around a frozen lake is anyone’s guess; however, I imagine that I probably arrived through a combination of an actual recollection of something I heard or read and/or my deep abhorrence for the holidays).

Needless to say, I never saw myself as a blogger. So why now? 

Why the hell not? After all, I have a laptop, an ax to grind, and just enough narcissism to believe that I have anything worthwhile to say. 

Welcome to my blog!