It seems that there is an initiative to get newbie bloggers to start blogging in the blogosphere. My immediate reaction is along the lines of, why on earth would people want to do this? Then I remember that human beings have an amazing capacity to want to legitimise their every waking act. Obviously being a person who blogs about videogames is not felt to be high on the legitimisation scale. So they believe that if they pull lots more people into their chosen activity, then by default of weight of numbers their activity, (blogging), will now be somehow more respectable.

The next step along this line is the desire to partake in the imposition of new rules concerning bloggers in an attempt to “raise the bar” and “clean up their act”. Now the true control freaks will rise to the surface much like scum floating on top of your nice pot of fresh chicken stock. Stay tuned for this one.

My way of legitimising my activities is to tell people in the actual real world that I do it. Take for example my new job. I have been there for four months and I had no hesitation when someone mentioned that they play Skyrim, that I have a blog dedicated to videogaming. My reply was roughly along these lines:

“Ohmygodzbottom! I haz a blog all about that and I get so many hits and so many people know me and we should get togetehr and playz all these games just you and me and maybe if you’re lucky I’ll write about you on my blog!!”

On reflection, perhaps there is something to this blogger initiative after all …

My real concern is for the newbie bloggers out there, (poor dear little lost souls). I suppose if they can come to terms with the fact that they are being underhandedly used by other bloggers to make themselves feel better, well hey, whatever floats your boat, kid. If I were going to give advice to newbie bloggers it would be along these lines:

1. If you need encouragement to do something as simple as writing from the comfort of your own home then perhaps you need to rethink this whole blogging thing.
2. The world will have you believe that your voice is special. My cat was considered special after he got his head slammed in the fence gate. Is that the sort of special you mean? Lets be honest, you’re almost certainly way less special than you believe yourself to be.
3. You think you have something to say? Well, if you had something to say you’d be blogging about it wouldn’t you, not requiring artificial stimulation to get you going.
4. Some people will say that your chosen topic has been done to death. Let me tell you that unless your topic is dwarf wrestling, mud-dancing, tightrope-walking, barefoot cream buns playing WoW, then they’re probably right.
5. If you believe that grammar isn’t important but getting your ideas out there is, then I would reply that knowing how to operate a motor vehicle competently isn’t important but getting to Burger King fast right now is as well. Did ya like that grammar there then?
6. You want to hold your best ideas back until you have lots of readers for your blog so those ideas aren’t wasted? Yeah, I can see the logic in that …
7. How do you get comments? Virgin sacrifice, my friends, virgin sacrifice.
8. If you get through all this and blog, chances are you’ll last about 3 posts, then there will be a break of about a month, then you’ll do another post, then there’ll be a break of about 2 months, then you’ll do a post about how you ‘haven’t forgotten us’, and then we will never hear from you again.

Happy blogging!