Celebrity Bloggers Conference

A friend and I dropped by blog con, a gathering of local bloggers, which was held on July 16 at DXO. I saw a few of the top bloggers in Singapore including mrbrown (his little daughter is like a celebrity herself), mrmiyagi, and the infamous Wendy. It was kind of weird. There were all of popula bloggers getting their photos with other bloggers or with their fans. People treat them like celebrities. No doubt that these photos will be popping up on various blogs in the next few days. There will probably be comments like "Look, there's me and Blogger so and so. Isn't he cute? Isn't he great?"

Actually, the only blogger I really talked to was mrmiyagi who was actually quite a nice guy. I mentioned to mrmiyagi (And yes, he is much shorter in person) that I had been reading his column about blogging in Today. He happened to start writing that column after I had just started my blog. He said that "people who read it, don't blog." But he meant that the purpose of his column was to inform people who don't know anything about blogging. When I told him that I am a new blogger, he told me not to blog about political topics because it's boring. He said I should just blog about whatever interests me instead. It thought that was good advice.

So why do people blog? And why do I blog? I blog to express myself and maybe other people will happen to be interested in what I blog about and we can share opinions. However, I think there are a lot of bloggers out there who are only blogging towards an audience. I kind of disagree with that, but at the same time I can understand how that could happen.

I guess that once a blogger realizes that a lot of people are viewing their blogs every day, they feel that they must have something to blog about. They feel that they must keep their blog really exciting, fun, or controversial to keep their fans. They are no longer blogging to communicate, but blogging to stay popular. Or they are probably tempted to make things up, so their lives seem more interesting to their fans. They probably do stuff, so they can blog or brag about it later.

I haven't been reading a lot of other blogs, but according to one friend who has been blogging a lot longer than I have, some bloggers do start to write a lot differently after they get a fan base. He feels that this drastically decreases their writing quality and effects how they express themselves. They start to censor themselves more because they know they have lots of viewers or they write things only because they think their fans are interested in them- not because the blogger is interested. He also thinks that once people know who he really is or what is his profession, he won't be able to blog anymore. He won't be able to be honest anymore in his blogs. He'll feel self conscious about what or who he writes about.

So maybe I should have a few rules about my own blog. I will go back to them periodically and see how I do.

Here are my blogging rules:

1. Don't blog about work. It's boring and will probably end up only being a string of complaints. I probably do that enough already. No need to torture more people with my complaints.

2. Only blog when I feel like it. My blog is a way to express myself. I should only blog if I really have an opinion about a topic or if I feel inspired about something.

3. Don't lie on my blog. Don't make up stuff or just do stuff so I can blog about it. If I start doing that, then I am writing towards an audience and not just for myself.

So now I just have to wait and see what happens.......let the blogging begin!