Quad Lasers

Blogger Life Cycle, by Min Jung Kim.

Hmmm, I’d say that I was at about stage 9; just crazy enough to have actually met other bloggers, but not quite crazy enough to write abstract metaphysical entries about writing abstract metaphysical entries… yet. I also have to point out that I’ve never had a wishlist of any kind.. you know, not being a girl and all.

Anyhoo, here are my own commentaries on each step that I can say, with a fair amount of honesty and the occasional hint of geeky shame, definitely apply to me:

• 1. Start reading blogs.
  I never really read any blogs before I started writing in my own, I just didn’t care enough. It wasn’t until I started adding people to my livejournal list that I really bothered about what other (sometimes random) people had to say.
• 2. You start a blog.
  My first ‘proper’ (i.e. one that I actually wanted other people to read and give a crap about) blog was WeFallApart, and it didn’t become a proper ‘bloggy’ blog for about 4-5 months. I didn’t start writing about cheese sandwiches, but I wasn’t far off. In the name of branching out, I had a brief flirtation with Blogspot, but that quickly ended when I realised that Blogspot is a useless pile of donkey crap.
• 3. You become a stats whore.
  Sigh.. Yes, I’ve occasionally been a little obsessive about how many people read my stuff… Don’t pretend that you haven’t done this too, you damn dirty liars.
• 4. You become really personal on your site as the online and real-life worlds start confusing you.
  I wouldn’t call it being ‘confused’, but yeah, I’ve written some very personal things in my blogs - I don’t know many people that haven’t done this. Thank goodness for LJ’s filtering options is all I can say - they allowed me to pick and choose which people I wanted to be able to read these very personal words.

  Most people who do anything social on the internet (and yes, blogging is a form of social interaction) have ‘real life’ friends, and ‘online’ friends (and of course, some of our friends fall into both categories), and often times this brings about the unusual situation in which we will entrust our most intimate thoughts and feelings to a group of people that we may never meet, while at the same time going to great lengths to hide these emotions from the people around us in the physical world. I for one have done this on countless occasions.

• 5. You faux “retire” from blogging.
  Hmm, I was going to say that I’ve never done this, until I realised that up until recently I was only posting a couple of entries a month on livejournal… Then again, the only reason I was so lax with that blog is because I was concentrating my efforts on setting up this one… so *nyer*, or something…
• 6. You cave back into blogging in less than 72 hours.
  I didn’t ‘cave’, I just remembered that no matter how much tweaking you do with a blog’s layout, no matter how many fancy features you’ve painstakingly implemented, people won’t really give a crap unless you actually POST something every now and then…
• 7. You decide to “get serious” about blogging.
  My own evolution as a blogger goes something like this:

  Crappily designed personal webpage > Livejournal > First own-server blog software > Better own-server blog software

  So yeah, I’d say that by now I’m quite serious about this blogging malarky.

• 8. You have a pseudo flirty im/blogging/flickr flirting relationship with another blogger whom you have never met.
  I’ve gone one better than this; I live with another blogger (and fellow photographer) who also happens to be my wonderful girlfriend - LauraLatham. (Take a bow honey :D)
• 9. You decide that you must meet other bloggers.
  Well yes, I’ve done this too, having met a few fellow LJers in my native Manchester - though really, I think that the events of #8 far supercede anything that could be written for #9.. Which kinda makes this step a tad redundant, doesn’t it?

What about you people? Where on the list would you place yourselves?