When some people you just term as “bloggers”

The official definition of a blog or weblog (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Slang) is "an internet website containing an eclectic and frequently updated assortment of items of interest to its author". A blogger is, therefore, someone who keeps a weblog of this sort.

Wendy, however, disagrees. And after being quoted out of context by The New Paper, she is determined to give her own definition of the term "blogger":

"And what is with this bullshit about "she has a blog and thus she is a blogger"?

ARE YOU STUPID OR WHAT? YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW PEOPLE WHO HAVE BLOGS ARE BLOGGERS? Stop quoting my panasonic entry about me saying she is a blogger, asswipe, like you are so clever. Are you ugly? You must be. Now my blog entries feel disgustingly raped by your rampant perusal.

Everyone who blogs is a blogger? If you are so clever, then answer me... But first tell me your name. Is it Lumpy? So Lumpy, if you can manage to swim half a lap without dying, is it right for me to call you "Lumpy the swimmer"?

No, because calling you Lumpy the Guy-Who-Fucked-His-Cabbage-Patch-Kid-Doll would be a little more appropriate as a the defining title for you...

Lumpy, of course, since you are so mediocre (by mediocre I mean scum of society), if you blog, I suppose we can also call you a "Blogger". But of course, your turd of a blog has a grand readership of half a person a day, because someone once told you (the biggest of the soccer kids) that how much of a person you are is measured by your penis size. (By virtue of the wise soccer kid, girls are measured by boobies)"

Typical of Wendy--she just can't seem to state a simple point without hurling abuses and sounding like a complete turd. But what she's trying to say is this: just because you "blog", that doesn't immediately make you a "blogger". Rather, it all depends on how good or "famous" you are in the blogsphere.

In short, it runs along the lines of "I'm the old bird around here, so don't play play with me." =)

I agree she has a valid point about what defines a swimmer, especially if you consider swimming on a professional level, with the same applying to footballers and people in almost every professional trade. You don't call someone a doctor or engineer unless he's qualified.

But then, let's consider the following:

If John plays games a lot, that makes John a "gamer". Likewise, if someone loves to surf, you might call him a "surfer dude". These people take their hobbies seriously, but they're not "professionals" in these areas. And they may not be famous--or even an expert--but so what?

When you pursue a hobby, it's how passionate you are that matters, not how successful. And since blogging falls under this category, anyone who owns a weblog and faithful updates it is very much a blogger. Yes, you can try to make a living out of it, but that only makes you a "professional blogger"; it doesn't make others anything less.

So what if no one reads Lumpy's blog even though he tries to update it everyday. He's still "Lumpy the blogger"--he just isn't "Lumpy that famous blogger.

Oh, if Zoe Tay decides to start her own blog, that'll make her a blogger too. And just because she's already a famous TCS artiste doesn't mean she can't make a good one too. =)

Imagine the irony: you have your very own blog, hosted on a service known as BLOGGER, yet--according to Wendy--you're not a blogger because, unlike her, you're not famous/infamous. You're just another loser who happens to have a blog, that's all....

Wendy thinks blogging is a God given talent that only she and a few others have. The way I see it, I hardly even call it a skill, let alone a talent, especially when even an Internet novice can have his or her own blog set up in a matter of minutes. Besides, how talented can a certain "famous blogger" be if she can't manage HTML well, can't do her own design, can't set up her own weblog engine, and can't argue rationally both on TV and on her own blog.

There's no such thing as a talent for blogging. There's only a talent for writing and using weblog technologies to maximise that potential. Maybe Wendy had a bit of that when she first started (again, a huge maybe), but apparently she's now lost it. Not to mention she's lost the plot as well.

"At first glance my opinion seems to be arrogant; bitchy even. I seem to be thinking that she is not worthy to be termed as a "blogger", just as I am often termed.

No offence to all famous bloggers, including myself, but without your blog, you will be possibly be nobody (famous). And that's why you are known as "that famous blogger". "


Well, some of the world's most famous bloggers have distinguished themselves in other areas, by the way. Cory Doctorow, who was here for the Singapore Writers Festival, is also a sci-fi writer and journalist (besides being a famous blogger himself). Others who run popular blogs don't enjoy celebrity status in real life, but they have successful careers and enjoy high standing in their professional circles (college professors, tech industry veterans).

Wendy might be nothing without her blog, but just because it's true for her doesn't mean it's true for "all famous bloggers".


If you ask me, Wendy clearly has every right to be upset at being misquoted by The New Paper, but why get so defensive and worked up over what a blogger is and isn't? Unless her detractors are right--that she's not happy that a fellow blogger has upstaged the self-proclaimed queen of blogsphere, and worry that this is just the start?

Hmm... If you ask me, it's kind of like those journalists who lash out at bloggers simply because they feel threatened by this new crop of "amateur" writers. =)


nb: What's Wendy's obesssion with numbers anyway? She can't seem to stop reminding people that she aced her PSLE with 269 and has a high IQ of over 148.... When will she get the point that a PSLE score of 269 means diddly-squat to a 21-year-old; an IQ of over 148 matters little if she can't even show an ounce of intelligence to save her butt; and 20,000 hits per day is nothing to boast about when she can't gauge the quality of her readers (a porn site can easily surpass that figure, but that doesn't say much about its content).