Blog stalking guilt
I have a confession to make. I obsessively read several blogs written by people I find extremely irritating. And don't you dare think that you are one of those people. I am not talking about anyone on my bloglist to the side of this commentary. Or anyone who has ever commented on my blog or anyone I know in real life. If you are reading this and you say to yourself, "Gee, she must be talking about me" then you know for sure that I AM NOT. This means you, people whose names start with J, S, K, D, M, A, T, etc... who actually read my blog. I guarantee that none of the irritating people whose blogs I read out of some sort of deranged sense of indignancy and self-righteousness has ever read mine. These are people I do not know even cyberly. I stumbled upon them through blog-surfing and connections from places on the web.
Do any of you do this?
Without going into detail or giving links, here is why:
One I read because I want to validate my reasons for not homeschooling my children. (Note to the person who might read this who does homeschool her children and lives quite far south of me, I read your blog to make myself feel guilty for not homeschooling my children. You seem to be doing a good job of it, and it's not making you crazy) I also read it to get my daily recommended eye-rolling exercise as this person puts REALLY HUGE fake flowers on her daughter's head and photographs her. I mean REALLY HUGE. To the point of nearly eclipsing the girl's own head.
One I read because I can't believe a person can be that vocal about her own beauty and charm and monetary riches. She has a very high opinion of her own writing and humor too. But I find her humor crass. (and yet I continued to read it mostly to say to myself, "I would NEVER write about THAT!) This person has only very recently gone private, though, and now I can't read her blog. Pout.
One I read because I believe she is a real-life incarnation of Seriously So Blessed (a Mormon satire blog), down to her use of {{ }} instead of regular parentheses, relentless use of cutesy words like "preggo" and "kiddos," overcapitalization of the word "me," over-apostrophization of any word ending in "s,"and vapid commentary on a life made better through crafting, shopping, and girls'-nights-out. The language usage person in me loves to feel grammatically superior and this blog feeds that hunger (even though I cringe at my own self when I make up words. See previous blog post title containing the word "exercism." I also choose to use non-standard usage for effect or for whimsy. So I can be quite a hypocrite when it comes to usage snobbery).
No I won't give you links. Find your own irritating blogs to read. Or maybe that's why you're here? In that case, :P
(Edited to add: yes, I feel guilty about this. I need to be nicer.)
Do any of you do this?
Without going into detail or giving links, here is why:
One I read because I want to validate my reasons for not homeschooling my children. (Note to the person who might read this who does homeschool her children and lives quite far south of me, I read your blog to make myself feel guilty for not homeschooling my children. You seem to be doing a good job of it, and it's not making you crazy) I also read it to get my daily recommended eye-rolling exercise as this person puts REALLY HUGE fake flowers on her daughter's head and photographs her. I mean REALLY HUGE. To the point of nearly eclipsing the girl's own head.
One I read because I can't believe a person can be that vocal about her own beauty and charm and monetary riches. She has a very high opinion of her own writing and humor too. But I find her humor crass. (and yet I continued to read it mostly to say to myself, "I would NEVER write about THAT!) This person has only very recently gone private, though, and now I can't read her blog. Pout.
One I read because I believe she is a real-life incarnation of Seriously So Blessed (a Mormon satire blog), down to her use of {{ }} instead of regular parentheses, relentless use of cutesy words like "preggo" and "kiddos," overcapitalization of the word "me," over-apostrophization of any word ending in "s,"and vapid commentary on a life made better through crafting, shopping, and girls'-nights-out. The language usage person in me loves to feel grammatically superior and this blog feeds that hunger (even though I cringe at my own self when I make up words. See previous blog post title containing the word "exercism." I also choose to use non-standard usage for effect or for whimsy. So I can be quite a hypocrite when it comes to usage snobbery).
No I won't give you links. Find your own irritating blogs to read. Or maybe that's why you're here? In that case, :P
(Edited to add: yes, I feel guilty about this. I need to be nicer.)
Comments
(when asked by a delivery nurse if I wanted to see the placenta after birthing one of my babies, I thought to myself "Why would I want to look at that? I have a baby to look at." Out loud, I politely declined)
I try not to sound braggy on my blog. I really just try to report the facts, ma'am. I do like taking pictures of my kids, so I'm sure that can get annoying sometimes. That's tough though because I am what I am, a mom who loves to see her kids in pictures:)
And, EWWW about placenta, smoothie drinkers.
But I would rather you didn't feel guilty while reading my blog--you can feel superior that you're not so arrogant as to believe you can educate better than the local school district (which I CAN and they make it EASY, which speaks more to the school district's idiocy than anything else, but that's a post for a different day). And enjoy the baby pictures!
But I know I don't irritate you--I'm also arrogant enough to think I'm that nice. :D
Your pictures of your little boy almost make me want another one!
I could basically copy and paste your paragraph about the third blog you read as the reason why I read a particular blog. The girl was one of my very first college roommates and left me very hurt and bitter. I get a fair amount of satisfaction when I read her blog full of phonetically spelled words and run on sentences and pass lots and lots of judgment on her.
Bon says it's unhealthy. He just doesn't understand.
And my word verification: prokdoc which is the kind of doctor I wouldn't ever want to be.
Really, I don't read blogs to pick apart the spelling. This one blog with the apostrophes is an exception only because the blog is a money maker and the blogger's aim (I assume) is to maintain a professional image. But misplaced apostrophes get in the way (especially habitually putting them in words that are plural, not possessive) and make her look amateurish.
I know you weren't talking about my blog. I was just saying that I hope I don't annoy anyone with all the pictures I take of my kids. I agree though that a giant flower on ones head, especially a small one at that (head, that is), is silly. A friend of mine way back when was always putting those big, huge, ridiculously large bows on her daughters' heads. She insisted that I have Mimi wear one when we were doing a photo shoot with her at 3 months. I didn't want to hurt my friend's feelings by refusing. Now I must look at those pictures daily of Mimi with her big, huge, ridiculously large bow on her head and wish I would have just told my friend that those bows look plain stupid. Ugh!