Today I stumbled upon an entry written by CJ over at Stuck in a Pagoda along with another written by Celestia of Bikkuri Project. Both of them touch upon the issue of blogging for the masses (+ vs. blogging for oneself instead), and reading these entries stimulated me to think a bit about why I blog.
The two blogs that I linked above are actually part of the International Wota network, which basically tracks [literally] hundreds of J-music blogs and reports on some of the more interesting entries. I’ve tried submitting Crimsonietta to them, but obviously I don’t cover J-music enough for their tastes, opting instead for unleashing my strong personal opinions. On one of their latest entries, they linked to a plethora of reviews on the latest C-ute PV, Edo no Temari Uta II. In case you haven’t been following my blog, a few days ago I wrote a very long and in-depth review of said PV, yet my blog did’t show up in their list of links. It very slightly irks me since my review is much longer than -any- of the ones listed, yet because I haven’t jumped on the J-music-blogging bandwagon means that my decent review ended up neglected even after I sent them an e-mail pointing it out =/
… so no, I can’t say I blog for recognition. I highly doubt anyone’s even really reading my incredibly verbose thoughts, haha =)
Moving on, CJ mentioned briefly that he has invested money into his domains and thus that subconsciously affects how seriously he takes his blogging, but I will confess that at present I’m being a dirty freeloader and leeching webspace off a kind friend. Yes indeedy, the hosting for my current domain is 100% free-as-in-beer, so I suppose you could cross off “monetary investment” from my “why I blog” list. I’m also not looking to make money from my blogging, so that’s not a motivational aspect of my ramblings either.
Confused and befuddled, unable to target the personal catalyst that encourages me to make public my thoughts, I decided to leave the matter be for the moment. It wasn’t until about 11pm that I decided to check my comments queue if I had any new spam that needed deletion… and that’s when I saw a comment that made me smile. A lot.
Joanna says:
Hello! I recently found your website and have been reading your entries. I really enjoy your tone of voice and the thoughts you present. I could say I am your junior as I am applying for M.I.T (amongst other schools) this fall and I find your works (especially the writings you have posted) very inspiring to read. Keep it up. I admire you =)
I’m not an egotistical person, but seeing Joanna’s post made me feel really happy that it wasn’t just a myth - there really ARE people out there interested in what I have to say. And not only that, she “admires” me? I beamed excitedly in my comfy office chair. The simple emotions conveyed in that one comment were so sincere and so inspirational - I felt truly humbled to be looked up to by someone who was hoping to be accepted to either the same school (or an equivalent in terms of tier) as I was.
It is these simple statements from readers that keeps me and many others around the world blogging day after day. It is the acknowledgement from those who do visit that encourages us to continue touching base on every topic under the sky. It is the inspiration that I am able to give, the appreciation that I am able to receive, and the help that I am able to provide that keeps me writing.
I know you said I grant inspiration and appear admirable… but this time, Joanna, I have to say you are the one I owe a hearty thank-you. Thanks to your honest comment, I feel like I’ve learned a thing or two about exactly why I choose to blog, and feel motivated to constantly strive to rectify myself: to improve my own writing skills and to continue to excel in my studies, so that others like you can also hopefully learn from my experiences and eventually share my joys. I posted this in your tagboard, but if there’s ever anything you (or any of my readers, for that matter) need help with in regards to college applications, computing, science, advice in general, etc. please don’t hesitate to ask! Best of luck to everyone out there, and thanks for reading =)
Hehe. I am glad I did something useful this summer! Your entry really made me contemplate why do I blog. I find that I often blog for the mere action of voicing all my rants is just cathartic. It seems as if I have been drowning in SAT preparations, university application stuff and working ahead to make the next school term easier for myself. I am glad I found your blog because I find your thoughts very suitable for my taste. I often through many people’s blogs, but these honest and critical (and sarcastic, may I add xD) entries that you post are extra enjoyable to read. As a bonus, you are even going off to MIT soon! My dream! Haha. Maybe (hopefully) I’ll be able to join you on the campus in a year as I am also quite interested in Computer Sci (though my main focus will be on Business)!
Also, I was talking to a teacher at this SAT prep school in China when she told me to find people who don’t know me very well to review my personal essays and statements, etc. and see how much they could learn about me through those writings. Do you think you could do give me some comments if I sent you some of these?
Hehehe. Have fun in your last summer before college! =P
There are a few reasons why your blog probably wasn’t included in the post. Most of the IW staff uses a group RSS feed, and we haven’t updated it with a couple new additions. So when the Edo no Temari post was being prepared it probably slipped under the radar for that reason. And yep, you did submit your blog to IW, but there is no guarantee that we will get to it on the day or even week of sometimes. We do this for fun; most of us have full-time jobs and family to consider.
As for you not covering jmusic enough for us, we do link to a couple blogs that only occasionally write on music. So if your entries are of good quality and we continue seeing a focus on the subject, sure, somebody will probably do a writeup. But we are usually working with a backlog that runs about 20-30 links deep. On a daily basis I would guess that there are between 50 and 150 (depending on what’s happening or what day of the week) blog updates, if not more, for the 100+ blogs on our feed. We try to cover everything worth mentioning, but things can and will get missed. We are trying, but like I said, we do this for fun and have other commitments.
I don’t want you to think that IW is ignoring you by any means. It is just hard to keep track of every single blog and every single entry. We have a lot to do and not a lot of people to do it. Having said that, if you feel like you can help the site, you are always welcome to apply as a contributor.
It is rather awesome when people leave comments that awesome :)
Then again, you deserve them!
Yes, the random free movie tickets reinforced my faith in humanity but I’m still very puzzled. Why in the world would anyone do that?! o.O
Remember, post length isnt everything. We’re sorry we didn’t cover your post but like pengie said it probably slipped under the radar. I covered an entry who only wrote one paragraph, but they made a really good point about an artist within that paragraph but like I’ve said to other bloggers and like pengie has said, we can only cover entries for what we have time for.
You should see our blog list, I havent refreshed it for 3 days and theres already 300 entries. lol.
great, usefull 0_0
Hi, Vivi.
I think there must be an H!P/MIT gene or something, because I’m seriously astounded by the number of people at MIT who are H!P fans. Both my roommate, Kyttyee (who’s in Sekai no Melody), and I are H!P fans and have been for the last year or so, and we discovered H!P semi-independently (I got into H!P before Kyttyee and did talk about H!P a bit, but she really got into H!P after discovering AKB48 on her own). And MIT’s a relatively small school; including you, I already know of at least 3 or 4 people who discovered H!P independently, and a few more who became interested after I introduced them to H!P. And I don’t know very many people or much about their musical interests, so I have no idea how many H!P fans are at MIT that I don’t know about.
Anyway, someone in International Wota pointed me to your blog, and I would definitely encourage you to continue blogging on J-music topics if you enjoy doing so. I’m an IW contributor and have posted several reviews there (though none in the last month, due to being hosed). We are under-staffed, and everyone contributes whenever they have time (we certainly aren’t getting paid for it), but the number of J-music blogs grow daily and the ones we are aware of number in the hundreds. So plenty of posts, even well-written ones, will be overlooked. Ideally, every well-written relevant post on any blog or site should be covered, but it just isn’t practical to do so. That said, if you continue writing posts that an IW contributor finds interesting and thinks IW readers would enjoy reading, you’ll probably be covered at some point (the more you write, the sooner this will likely happen), so just be patient. I myself have had plenty of posts I thought were pretty awesome but were never mentioned on IW (even after I became a contributor).
With regard to your ºC-ute PV review specifically, it’s been more than a month since it was posted, so I’m afraid it probably won’t be mentioned on IW, but readers will probably find it if we review a more recent post of yours and find your writing interesting.
Keep up the good work!
-K.