Hello,
Today we'll talk about a slightly different topic, compared to the usual episodic coverage of the summer season 2012, that I thought interesting to discuss with both readers and fellow anime/VN bloggers.
How do you identify a particular blog in the hundreds (257 still active in the anime blogosphere alone) available? What are the distinctive features that allow you to easily understand who are you relating to?
Many would answer "blog layout" or even "the series they're covering in this season". I would say that "personality" is probably the biggest factor to let us understand who is the writer on the other side of the blog.
When I talk about "personality", I don't refer to the general definition of it (see Wikipedia), but to a more particular definition related to the blogging world.
For me, personality is that "extra" mix of emotions that everyone of us can include in their own writing. Anger, love, sadness...all these are important if you want to appear like a "human" to the reader.
I heard of many fellow bloggers trying to contain their emotions and ideas in order to give an "objective" insight on the series. Is there even anything objective (invariant regardless of the observer) to say when reviewing an anime show?
These are the "blogs" that decide to go for the professional approach and become mere drones devoid of any personality for the sake of giving "standardized and informative" content to their readers.
Are those even considered blogs in the first place? Aren't they simply at the same level of newspapers? They don't give their honest opinion on a particular subject, they just summarize the content and try to give uniformed insight on it.
The best bet in order to understand how much personality a blogger has is to try and identify the author by simply looking at the content without any other kind of external help. (of course you need to have read many posts of the same author in order to be able to do so)
I wonder if people actually enjoy writing in that particular way all days in their blogs, or it is simply slowly becoming a chore in order to try and achieve popularity by using patterns and styles from other blogs as "model".
I often see the same situation when reading team blogs, every author tend to try (intentionally or unintentionally) and "uniform" their style to the others damaging their own personality and creating, as a result, dull content.
When I first started this blog, my rule was "have fun and try not overdo it". Having fun is always my first priority and I suppose it is clear in all my posts, because they tend to become very personal rants about the topic of the day.
The "not overdo it" part is very important because my first fear was about ending up overburned after a couple of weeks just like many other anime bloggers before me. As you know, the first three months are the most critical time for an anime blog...
Trying to do too much in a very short period of time or expecting too much from your blog is probably the first and most important cause of death for anime blogs, a lot more than real social issues preventing you from writing.
My most heartfelt suggestion to new anime bloggers is always the same that is "do cover anything that you enjoy at your own pace and don't feel pressured to achieve results in a very short time period".
Another important thing to consider when blogging is the relationship the blogger keep with his own readers/commenters. There are many different ideas about what is the best way to relate with your readers.
However, there are many bloggers who simply "ignore" the comments they receive leaving them without any kind of answer and while I accept their decision, I can't really endorse it.
Of course, a blog first and most important objective is to trasmit a "message" from the writer to the reader. However, aren't we all fellow anime fans in search for a good discussion or a laugh?
That's why I generally avoid commenting at all in those blogs where I know that I won't get any answer from the blogger.
And you? Do you prefer blogs with an overflowing personality or "professional" blogs? Do you think that team blogs tend to "dilute" the personality of each blogger? What is your take on the relationship with readers?
See you soon,
feal87