Blog Tagging Failure

I've been made aware of something called 'blog tagging' that's occurring at the moment.

The rules are very simple indeed.

1) You have to post a song that makes you happy.
2) You tag another blogger - as many as you want, but it has to be at least one.
3) You say at least one thing about each tagged blog that will make the author smile.

Despite my obvious dislike of the human race and its many inadequacies, I think this is rather a nice idea.

I was made aware of it by Piley, whose blog is excellent and was actually responsible for me jumping back into the blogosphere myself - I saw his success and I coveted it! So far, I have been spectacularly unsuccessful in drumming up the large readership and critical plaudits that I desire, but at least it's given me something to do that isn't a) smoking, b) playing the xbox, or c) other (that's wanking, obviously)

I've managed to identify a song that makes me smile, although I should point out that it's more of a nihilistic sneer than actual mirth or 'happiness', but I'm hitting a brick wall as regards finding a blog to champion.

There are only a handful of blogs that I regularly read and most of them already have a popular following. These blogs are linked on the right hand side of this page - have a look at them, they're good. But the trouble is, they're already doing very well and I see little point in providing advertising to bloggers who have book deals, celebrity endorsements or anything of that nature. The only one that really sprang to mind was Piley's blog - but, of course, he's already done the blog tag thing and I can't really just link back to him in some almighty, Internet-based, self-congratulatory circle jerk.

What I really want to do is celebrate a little-known blogger; someone who has a small but loyal following and deserves greater exposure. Trouble is, I don't know anyone like that.

I decided, therefore, to use the 'next blog' function on Blogger and search through random blogs until I found one that I felt would benefit from some advertising.

This proved to be a soul-destroying activity that drained me of any last vestiges of good-humour and humanity that were residing within the dessicated shell of my heart. I trawled through approximately 300 blogs last night and I almost choked on my own bile while doing so.

I've identified several blog types in my travels which I would like to tell you about.

Teen-angst wankery

This genus is comprised of barely pubescent teens who are either whinging incessantly about their current partner, effusively babbling about the Twilight books (I almost called them 'novels' ha ha ha ha! Growl...) or just generally indulging in self-obsessed naval-gazing. Yes, I realise the irony of me complaining about self-obsessed naval-gazing. Shut up.

The worst thing about some of these irritating little shitbags is that they lay a trap on their blog page. After it loads, there are five seconds of blessed silence and then your speakers start blasting out some schmaltzy, vomit-inducing piece of homogenous arse-gravy by Lucie Silvas, Nora Jones or Evanescence. How dare you make Evanescence come out of my laptop! I consider this to be on a par with installing a trojan on my hard drive. Don't infect my ears with your turgid, twee pop-cockery or I shall don an Edward mask, come round to your house and curl out a steaming biscuit on your living room carpet whilst gibbering and high-fiving myself.

Travel Blogs

A number of blogs detail, day by day, a trip, expedition or general mooch around some part of the world. These aren't too bad in that they actually have a logical end to look forward to. Most blogs continue forever no matter how lifelessly dull and insipid they are. Like watching a lame dog haul itself slowly across an infinite expanse of burning, sun-beaten tarmac, all you want to do is raise your heel above its head and put the poor thing out of its misery, but you just keep watching as it inches further and further towards obscurity for eternity.

The travel blogs describe, in laborious detail, every single moment of this person's journey around already well-trodden tourist areas. You are not Phileas fucking Fogg, you are simply the latest in a long line of overfed, over-enthusiastic globe trotters who somehow thinks your travels will by some strange form of osmosis, imbue you with the character and charm that you so sorely lack.

One in particular was from a gentleman who traversed 200 locks in his canal boat. Clearly, his gentle jaunt around the waterways of the UK is of no interest to anyone with a semblance of sanity, but I'm sure your friends, who are doubtless few in number, will be grateful for the opportunity to say, "No, that's OK Roger, we don't need to sit through another seven reels of slides, we've already seen all your photos on the blog. Gosh, is that the time? We really need to head off. Oh, by the way, we're moving but we don't know where. No, we don't have a telephone number to give you. Look, just leave us alone."

Wannabe Photographers

There are a large number of people out there who have had the unique idea of taking 'a photo a day!' and uploading it for the delight of everyone who visits their blog, i.e. nobody at all.

365 photos a year, eh? So you took a photograph every day. Well done you. Sadly, the horrible, deeply unpalatable truth that you're trying so hard to avoid is that nobody cares about your photographs. You will never be famous. The only reason you have a blog with your photos on it is because you no longer have any friends to show them to. They have all been driven away by your sad, tragic obsession. Stop now while you still can. Oh, and just because it's in black and white, that doesn't make it artistically relevant. I could take a birds-eye photo of my latest bowel movement, remove the colour using photoshop and then post it on my blog and it would appear to be 'cool and arty'. That doesn't necessarily mean it is so.

Do us all a favour and convince yourself that your talent is so great you can become a wedding photographer. Then we can all sit back and wait for you to fuck up someone's big day and get beaten to death in a pub car park by a baying mob of angry, drunken neanderthals in cheap suits and thick gold jewellery.

Professionals

Christ above, there are so many of these utter shite-hawks on Blogger that I was genuinely close to angry tears.

This collection of pointless cunts includes NLP Practitioners, Economists, Neuropsychologists and Self-help gurus. They fill the Internet with their over-hyped nonsense until it's bursting at the seams.

I'm reminded of the 'B' Ark in Douglas Adams excellent Hitchhikers trilogy. For those of you unfamiliar with the books, one part of the story involves an alien civilisation, their planet apparently on the brink of destruction, which builds several 'arks': spaceships designed to carry the population away to another planet somewhere so they can start a new life. The 'B' Ark is sent away first, with the others promising to follow. Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, the 'heroes', soon realise, however, that this ark is filled with telephone sanitation technicians, hair dressers and management consultants. There is no planet-wide disaster, the alien race were simply trying to get rid of the most useless third of their population.

Many of these 'Professional' bloggers would be given first class seats on the 'B' Ark.

Let's face it, if you're really a professional in your chosen field, why the suffering fuck haven't you got a website instead of a cheap-arsed, free blog? The obvious answer is that you actually aren't a professional at all, you're simply a pretender.

One person in particular caught my attention when they described themself thus (and this is a direct quote):
"Speaker, Coach, Mentor, Workshop Leader, Purveyor of Possibilities. I've taught hundreds of self-improvement workshops on marriage, parenting, happiness, & limiting beliefs as a Transformational Coach in the US and abroad, for the past 20 years."

Purveyor of possibilities. I don't think I've ever wanted to hunt down and slay someone as much as I do this person. Pray that we never meet, coachy, because I've got a few 'possibilities' of my own that I'd like to work out with you, you insufferable fuck-knuckle.

Thus, my traversing of the blogosphere was something of a disappointment. I've completely failed to find anyone to whom I can give a little free publicity.

Most worryingly of all, the whole episode has caused me to question my own existence. I have a horrible feeling that this blog itself is nothing more than a faux-misanthropic, thirty-something-angst-ridden, Charlie Brooker-lite barrage of rambling rants which are, effectively, nothing more than me saying "Look at me! Look at me! Please laugh at my antics!".

If that's the case, then good.

So, as a favour, can anyone recommend a good blog that I can champion because otherwise I'm simply going to have to tag myself and that would be awfully self-indulgent which, as you all know, is something that I find distasteful. Ahem.