Tag: blogging

Mulling The Identity of This Blog’s Obsessed Reader

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I enjoy attention as much as the next person, but it definitely seems as though one person reading this blog is a little…obsessed? The person, whomever they may be, reads this blog to the point that I struggle to understand their motive for caring so much about me.

I’m a random nobody in the middle of nowhere and, as such, if someone is all that interested in me, I can only assume they know me personally in some way. It’s unlikely that they just like my content. With that in mind, let’s contemplate who my “stalker” might be.

A Korean
I love Koreans, but they don’t have a middle switch. It’s all or nothing with them. And, given my bonkers behavior back in the day in South Korea, I can easily imagine some Korean living in the United States REALLY hating me or REALLY liking me and, as such, wanting to read everything possible I might be generating.

A Former Expat
Expats in South Korea are prone to being pretty fucking bonkers — I should know, I was once a bonkers expat myself. To the point that I was put in a book about crazy expats. (Still smarting about that one.) So, it’s as such, possible that some bonkers expat is obsessed with me for some reason.

Someone Connected To Annie Shapiro
Given where the person is coming from, my mind focuses on how close they are to about the area where the late Annie Shapiro’s body was found. So, being the paranoid person that I am I keep thinking that maybe the person who murdered her somehow, someway knows about me and is keeping an eye on me. Or, it could be the person obsessed with me is one of Shapiro’s relatives who heard a lot about me from her before she died and, as such, they’re keeping an eye on me.

Sometimes, You Have To Think of Your Mental Health

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I noticed in my Webstats that someone — probably coming from a link posted in a Slack — was out of the blue poking around this Website. The seemed particularly interested in what I had to say about the Twitter clone Post. It appeared as though they wanted to comment on the post didn’t like the requirements for doing it so they decided not to.

I have a very active imagination, so I of course thought a mixture of the absolute worst and the absolute best.

On one hand, I assume anyone who wants to comment on something I write here is completely insane and if they had the opportunity to comment without giving me an email address they would just tell me how crazy I was and how I should kill myself. Or something along those lines.

Of course, on the OTHER hand, maybe they liked what I had to say and wanted to offer me the chance to write — for pay! — on their site. Or something like that. But that doesn’t hold much water — if they were all that interested in talking me about a gig like that, there are plenty of other ways to track me down as opposed to commenting on a blog post. And why wouldn’t they want to give me their email address?

So, we come back to the point of why it’s so difficult to comment on this blog — I generally assume everyone online is fucking spiteful and hateful and, given the opportunity, would do everything in their power to make me hate myself and the world.

So, you CAN comment here, but you have to give me an email so I can respond to your comment about how I should walk into the sea and never be seen again. This is the same reasoning why I generally turn comments off on my Tik-Toks –some of the most fucked up things I’ve ever read were in a Tik-Tok comment. So, in that respect, Tik-Tok comments and Periscope comments are a lot a like.

People are just hateful online. They generally think the absolute worst filth possible to say in an effort to goad you into feeling back or responding.

Anyway, I make no apologies for making it difficult to comment on this blog.

Podcasting 2022 Is Where Blogging Was In 2002

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s not one to one, but as a rule of thumb, the podcasting space is around the same level of development as blogging was around 2003. If I have my chronically correctly, I think Gawker Media was founded around 2002 – 2003.

Anyway, the point is — podcasting is still somewhat under developed. There is still room for a blow out podcast network to blow up out of nowhere. There are a few really powerful podcast networks floating around, but there remains a bit of excitement in the podcasting sphere.

There is a window of opportunity for something cool to happen. I doubt anyone will do anything about it, though.

The Death Of Blogging

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m kind of slow on the uptake on this one. But it suddenly occurred to me that blogging is totally dead in the water. By “blogging,” I mean the concept of someone starting a blog and then, with a lot of hard work making name for themselves in this or that field. Blogging gave a lot of undiscovered talent a new venue to feature their work and it notion had a good rum of about a decade.

But no more.

Now, the energy that would otherwise be put into blogging now exerts itself with Twitter, podcasts and Facebook. It’s an interesting change. It’s interesting that something that was so common, so powerful for what seemed a long time simply doesn’t, in real terms, exist anymore.

I have repeatedly explain in great depth a new social media platform that would aspire, at least, to bring back some for of blogging. But since I have no money, can’t code and don’t want to learn, it’s not like it’s going to happen.