Blogsphere is a Zoo?

Biweekly Gathering 47: 笑傲江湖 It’s a Zoo Out There!

I hope this is what the moderator meant. 笑傲江湖 is a popular Chinese epic novel that has been adopted into television series and movies. Think of flying daggers, swooshing swords, and healing potions. It reminds me of gangster, swordsmen, hooligans—someone whom you don’t want to cross path with, let alone mess with. 笑傲江湖 is that transcendental state of mindset in which one is completely at ease and is above all the mumbo jumbo that’s going on around him. What kind of place is the blogging world? Is it also a crazy zoo?

I’m lucky to have met many (book) bloggers with whom I share common (reading) interests. A blog (specialty blogs like book blogs) is specific and only people who are interested in a specific subject will stay connected. The returning visitors of a site-specific blog must either resonate with the subject matter or find the content informative. My blog, for example, exercises a pattern of which book reviews and editorial pieces on bookish issues form the backbone. An effort is made to minimize digression from the standard subject matter, in other words, readers will usually find what they expect. Compared to one-sentence status updates, say, on social media sites like Facebook, blogging seems too big and impersonal, because I only blog about books. If the subject of books is what readers dig, the time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is well-spent. Blogs should continue to thrive as long as readers appreciate prose. The personal weblogs that rant about daily trivia are most likely be replaced by Facebook status updates.

While fulfilling my lust on books and literature, the best thing that happens to me is meeting all of you readers and book bloggers, who contribute to a very thought-provoking and inspiring discussion. I enjoy reading all your comments although I might not be able to get on top of responding promptly. In establishing a voice here, I have found myself–to express myself fully. Recently I feel challenged to be able to post daily, although readers probably won’t mind if I skip a day or two, as long as the content delivers. As to the audience, I have never thought the blog would have attracted so many people from all over the world. Strange is that my friends and family, to whom I target at the beginning of this establishment, hardly read my blog. Individuals who were separate during the day—at work and in whatever circumstances and station of life—begin to lose uniqueness, to leak distinctiveness, melting into a collective that is found in this blog, which talks about books and literary topics. In a way, this is a healthy kind of zoo, with all the sanity you can be rest-assured, because the subject matter of this patch of the blogging world steers me clear of the zoo.