Saturday, May 17, 2008

Misanthropy Abroad's Tips For Better Blogging


While there can be some excellent exchanges on blogs there can also be an incredible amount of whataboutery, MOPEry and general denseness which leads to a single misspelt word undoing ones entire argument because lord knows that if you happen to miss a button before punching the publish button you're a hopeless Neanderthal who is lucky to be walking about on two legs let alone venture any opinions online.

So today I propose to help lift up the level of debate online for discussion by going over the three simple rules for reading and writing on blogs. Text, Context, and Subtext. I'd thought about digging up a few classic posts that demonstrate this but I felt I'd go a different route and so we're heading to the local establishment for fine upstanding young Christian males, the YMCA.
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Text

The starting point for our conversation. On the surface it's the simple extolling of community, charity and brotherly comraderie. Sure there are a few eye brow raising lines such if you put them together, such as,


I'm sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time
They have everything
For young men to enjoy.
You can hang out with all the boys
You can do whatever you feel
I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf
You can hang out with all the boys

And this is where the next part comes in.
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Context

This is pretty simple, who's talking. In this case it's these guys

That certainly adds something to the text. But I'm sure that we would all agree that that these boys all look like fine upstanding Christians who feel nothing except brotherly love for one another. Except for the Cowboy, who's Catholic and the Biker, who's a Seventh Day Adventist. There's a little tension there.

Now say for example if these people sang the song it might mean something different.

But thankfully they didn't (to the best of my non-existent knowledge on them) and so we are free to move on to the final idea that one must understand for better blogging.

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Subtext

So we come to the final part where we combine what's being said with who's saying it and we come up with what they really mean which in this particular case is...

Gay sex, there I said it. I did think about trying to do an image search for some clever cartoon but in the end I couldn't do it. Sure I've looked up the term "donkey sex" and if you type in "elephant fucking" my blog shows up, but this one is just a search too far.

So there you have it. Follow these simple guidelines and you'll get more out of blogging everyday.

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