Ass of Bloggers (Stinkapore)

Ahhh… time for me to chip in a few words (not like anybody gives a shit anyway).

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When I first heard of the Association, I thought, well… bloggers are individuals. Do we really need an Association/Society/Club/Fraternity/Sorority/Greek House… (you get what I mean) to unite us?

We come together in an online community celebrating diversity, so I seriously don’t think being accredited with whatever power or professionalism would appeal to the mass of us individuals.

You see, we have our differences, and what huge-ass differences are they!

We have the ones with the ugly blogs with extrasibehmany animated GIFs, the ones with bad English, the ones with too many camwhore pictures with nothing much else to tell, the ones who try too hard, the ones who can’t be bothered and everything else in between.

Diversity means the whole blogosphere gets colourful. Diversity means that every time you discover a new blog written by somebody you don’t already know, there’s a surprise element. Or shock. Or disgust. Or boredom. Or amazement.

Can you remember the first time Kenny Sia caught our attention? Can you remember the awful taste in your mouth after discovering Bandung Vader’s writings? Can you remember how Rockson got us all ROFLMAO? Can you remember how interesting everything actually is, even though we don’t agree on almost anything, almost all of the time?

Instead of celebrating our diversity, do we need to be slapped with the same label (as if being termed a blogger isn’t one already) so that we get invited to events and talk about the same things? If I join the association, which is BTW invite-only and provided I am not in their blacklist (for whatever reasons), so if I don’t blog like I should (intellectual, have an agenda or a political stand, blah blah), would I be kicked out or something?

This reeks too much of elitism, and could cause further segregation of an already segregated community. We need to celebrate, not alienate.

And what? Excuse me? I have to pay an annual fee to be part of it? Sorry, I rather support Cat Welfare Society. I care about the cats more than I care about my blog’s possibly lucrative future (I don’t have much to say that will improve society in any way, anyway).

Anyway, what defines professional in the blogging sense? If I make a lot of money through my blog, I am considered professional?

Or if I actually form proper sentences with perfect grammar and features supercalifragilistic vocabulary, means I blog professionally?

Or could it mean that if I do nothing but blog and attend events catered for bloggers all day, I am professional?

Or… if I blog about a certain passion sharing my expertise to the WWW, and spew jargon those in the know will know, means I am blogging professionally?

*shakes head*
Do we need that kind of definition, anyway?

In all fairness, having opinions are fine. To me, broadcasting your mission statement in a skewed, biased, opinionated manner is bad form.

Have an objective, aim, and direction? Totally fine. But putting in personal agendas and vendettas to hold up a registered society/association is… what do I call it? Quite unprofessional.