Art of Blogging

The powers that be around here (I’m looking at you, Amanda) have bestowed me with a particularly difficult task: to review and critique five randomly picked, varyingly worthwhile and only tangentially related blogs from around the internet.

Not that I’m averse to reviews or critiques or anything – much to the contrary, picking things apart is no doubt one of my favorite pastimes. But despite their innate immediacy and quick-hitting nature, blogs, as a whole, are not meant to be digested all at once: Multiple YouTube videos, 100 word posts, tweet strings, epic screeds on Michelle Obama’s dress choice – these are things we let slowly, yet constantly trickle into our lives.

We were not, as the internet gods deigned it, meant to read 3,000 words of Andrew Sullivan in one sitting. That’s a circle of hell I’m not eager to dance in again anytime soon. 

Okay, okay: so I’m not crazy about this topic. But, since we have a time/space constraint here, and only so much space is set aside for my ranting, let’s lay out the groundrules before this blogpost turns into a novella.

A good blog, in my often un-humble opinion, accomplishes the following tasks:

-Provides quality content at least once a day (preferably 5-10 times a day on sites with multiple authors or especially short posts);

-Incites interaction with readers, both in terms of commenting, social media and – most important – participation from blog administrators and authors in the conversations their content has stirred;

-Acknowledges the existence of the rest of the internet, as well as the differing perspectives and takes floating around cyberspace;

-Maintains an easily navigable layout, in which the reader neither has a problem finding content, nor feels overwhelmed by an abundance of widgets, links, ads or other colorful things that make people money;

-In following with the previous theme, makes it easy for readers to a) find other related posts or b) highlights content that the reader would not search for otherwise;

-Most of all, leaves the reader with a feeling of satisfaction intense enough that they find themselves clicking back every few hours, waiting for the author(s) byline to appear once more atop the page.

A bad blog, of course, accomplishes none of these things.

Without further ado, let’s do this. From worst to first:

Howard Fineman’s Huffington Post Blog

Host: Take a wild fucking guess

STRENGTHS: Howard Fineman is an actual journalist. All of his posts read like slightly abridged newspaper articles. (That’s meant as a compliment, by the way.) Most of the time, there’s a sense of integrity to what you are reading. Fineman does his best – as a good journalist should – to write from a non-biased perspective while also making a point through his writing. He also does a great job inciting conversation amongst readers. His pointed questions at the end of many posts have comment numbers on most of his posts stretching into the quadruple digits.

WEAKNESSES: I agree with Mr. Fineman’s politics, I just wish they could be expressed elsewhere. The format (1-2 posts a day, mostly of the abridged-journo-variety) leave the reader (at least this one) seeking more; in reading Mr. Fineman, I felt like I’d be better served by reading a newspaper, or at least a more all-encompassing news website.

Lastly, the HuffPost layout, for all its money-making glory, is a mess: it’s difficult to navigate from post to post, and the clutter on the page distracts from the content itself.

NYTimes: Well

Host: New York Times (Duh.)

STRENGTHS: Fantastic, clean and aesthetically pleasing layout. This should be an exemplar of how every news organization should be running its online outfits.

Also, it’s the New York Times. What you’ve got here is journalism: There’s some shorter stuff for sure, but mostly you’re going to be reading quality news and advice from a trustworthy news source. The post on bullied autistic children stood out in particular as the sort of informative and impactful writing you might read in a print publication.

WEAKNESSES: …because it was that sort of writing. NYTimes Well isn’t as much a blog as it is an online translation of all print articles containing a Health + Wellness keyword.

I’m not sure if this is a bad thing, but there’s something unappealing about content that leads or ends with the words “This article originally appeared in…”

Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish

Host: TheDailyBeast.com

STRENGTHS:

Sullivan does a better job than any of his competitors in post frequency: I had read 20 posts before I even realized that his live blog from last night’s DNC coverage was still several posts away. He also does a wonderful job of including other voices in the conversation; his blog often responds to readers and quotes opinions both sympathetic and in opposition to his own.

Furthermore, his use of block quoting is perfect for his quick-hitting writing style, which allows him to prop up or tear down vast stretches of text with just a few well-placed sentences. Perhaps his best strength is variety– full blog posts, tweet strings, YouTube videos and other types of posts are employed frequently.

WEAKNESSES: With regards to the block quotes, Sullivan does a terrible – almost journalistically unethical – job with attribution and hyperlinks. His most recent post at the time of writing contains 165 words, 164 of which were taken from a writer at the National Journal Daily. There is no attribution on the page – only a hyperlink. (This is not an uncommon occurrence.)

Perhaps even worse: his blog has no comments section, which is a deadly sin in this arena. It’s not surprising that most of his posts have zero likes and are shared infrequently on Facebook and twitter; if you cut one head off the social media hydra, the rest are destined to die with it.

David Roberts’ Grist Blog

Host: Mhm.

STRENGTHS: Environmental issues aren’t of particular interest to me (especially when compared to politics) so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Roberts’ blog. Each column/post is well thought out, well-linked, and well-written. In regards to the latter, his writing is forceful and interesting without going overboard; his arguments are rational and measured; and most of all, he’s not a Green Johnny One-Note. Roberts’ subject matter varies: for an environmental blog, there’s a lot of politics on here, as well as some stuff you wouldn’t expect. (Music recommendations for example.)

WEAKNESSES: The posts are a little long, but from my perspective, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Still, Roberts would be well-suited to reign himself in once in a while. Otherwise, I have trouble finding flaws.

Gizmodo

Host: Gawker

STRENGTHS: I’m a sucker for the Gawker network. Their layout is what every website – blog or otherwise – should aspire to: big, colorful photos set against a crisp background; an easily navigable interface that has dozens of interesting articles with alluring headlines at your fingertips; and lastly, an awesome comment section that highlights the best comments and quiets some of the noise. Tthe writing is informative while also a bit snarky. It’s always a great read.

WEAKNESSES: As someone who isn’t an ex-nerd trying to rekindle the days when he had someone to talk to about his new calculator, Gizmodo isn’t my particular cup of tea. Want an example of how a blog should run, no matter the subject? Check out some of the other Gawker sites – especially the sports-centric Deadspin, which, through its unique combination of news, snark and entertainment, has  new media down to a science.

84 inch TV’s are pretty cool tho.

Hollywood doesn’t make movies about functional suburban families. Audiences just don’t respond to two parents that love each other like they do to Will Ferrell’s misshapen ass. No one would pay eleven bucks to watch a well-fed, educated, hygienic human male for two hours. Harry Potter was an orphan wizard, Nemo was physically disabled fish, Rainman was mentally disabled gambler, and even totally boring Peter Parker was lucky enough to be bitten by a radioactive spider. I broke my wrist twice, and in preschool I peed my pants on stage during a school play. Not the most exciting feature film. Try to imagine a montage scene of backing my car into trash cans and mailboxes. My own best friends would probably wait until it was on HBO to watch, and even then only when SportsCenter cut to commercial.

Despite its lack of sex scenes and choreographed fights, my normal childhood was surprisingly enjoyable. I was fortunate enough to have any opportunity I could want, love in my life, and every reason to succeed. I realize how lucky I am to be who I am. I could have be born in the year 722 in the middle of the desert, my life’s only purpose to find water before it’s too late. Without that desert to wander you lose appreciation for things that really matter. Instead, I spent my time Myspacing, IMing, texting, Facebooking, Tweeting, and watching movies and TV shows that told me I could be anything I wanted to be.

Why the fuck would they do that?

How was I supposed to accomplish anything without an abusive father or zombie apocalypse to fight against? All this goddamn comfort and happiness has done nothing but stand in the way. My movie sucks because I was told to dream big. Today I could have been a millionaire, or a professional athlete, or somebody who actually helps people with problems. I could have applied myself to something and actually achieved it. But my parents always supported me when I changed my mind. They loved me unconditionally. I could have used some conditions. Now I’m 21-years-old with few skills that don’t involve an Xbox controller. When was I even supposed to become a better person? By the time I resolved whether to use “haha” or “lol” in a text and find the best porn site to invest my birthday VISA gift cards in, there was no more time for contributing to the world. The life parents and grandparents worked so hard to build for me ruined my life.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Wow, this bum is worthless.” I am. But so are you. Would anyone pay to see your stupid movie? Are you really doing anything more than overpopulating the world?

No and No. But don’t feel bad. Most people are just as insignificant as you. Our whole generation sucks, and it’s not even our own fault. Bright, flashing screens brainwash us into eating foods that will kill us and buying clothes that make us feel less ugly. We can’t actually do anything important when there’s always an episode of Seinfeld on or a cute puppy video we haven’t seen yet. We know every Kardashian but we don’t know our neighbors. We love the new Justin Bieber song but we hate anyone with a different skin color. We think we know a little bit about everything but really we know nothing.

And I’m the worst offender.

Unbelievable boredom and intense normalcy has led to consumption of everything and anything. Without anything to do but take part in this incessant stream of meaningless shit, I have formed and perfected a overly-critical, absurd sense of judgement featuring a warrantless hatred of nearly everything I see. This is my gift. This is my curse.

Wow Everything Sucks will not cure cancer or bring about world peace. It will absolutely not better any facet of the human race. What it will do is what I can do. What most people like me can do. Nothing. It will provide no edge, no passion, no worth. But it’s better than what you’re probably going to do with your computer and that totally inconspicuous bottle of Lubriderm in your top drawer. So read it. Add to it. Be that anonymous commenter spewing out questionably ethical insults. Your movie already sucks, so why not?

As I write this, I’m just a few weeks removed from perhaps the most unceremonious birthday I’ve ever celebrated: the renewal of this website’s one-year domain registration.

A little over a year ago, I logged onto GoDaddy.com (thanks, Danica) and launched TheFanManifesto.com – a site that began as a personal blog, and has since evolved into an online daily sports magazine that has seen more than 60 writers and fans contribute work under its masthead.

When we started, there was nothing on the web that even attempted to provide what we do.

15 months later, there still isn’t.

I’d be the first to praise Grantland and TheClassical – both of which recently celebrated similar anniversaries – and I’d also say that BleacherReport has improved, even if most of its content is still composed of/by steaming piles of crap.

None of them do what we (try to) do.

Yet, as proud as I am of the progress we’ve made, I’m shocked (and terrified) of how much work is left to be done.

Bottom line: This internet thing isn’t easy as I thought.

See, whenever I’m talking about my website with friends or family, I get one initial question.

How much money do you make?

The answer: Nil. Nada. Or what might as well be. Like 99.9 percent of my fellow internet entrepreneurs, I make a sum of money so negligible it might as well not exist.

Those ads you see on the page? I’d need a million hits a day to grab 2 for $20 at Applebees.

Money has never been the goal here, and it never will be.

So for those of you new here, what are our goals?

First and foremost, to have fun. For the most part, I think we’ve succeeded on that front.

(Though, not gonna lie, WordPress can be a bit of a bitch.)

Otherwise?

To fulfill our stated creed as best as possible.

That is, to provide you, the fan, with a place to read unique, original and controversial content devoid of sensationalism, overt cynicism or bandwagoning.

And to do it from the perspective of the fan.

And to do it every (week)day.

Needless to say, it hasn’t been easy. And as much fun as we’ve had, we haven’t been 100-percent successful with all of the above.

There have been times where we haven’t published content for days at a time.

There have been times where I have personally failed to publish content for weeks at a time.

(Though, as our Editor-in-Chief, I edit every column that hits our homepage.)

There have been times where we’ve published content that, frankly, wasn’t all that good.

I’m not going to lie: it’s been a learning process.

But, with learning comes improvement – and there’s no doubt the product you’re reading now is infinitely better than the one you would have read a year ago.

Our readership has increased every month this year except for one.

Our gameplan has become more clear, and trimmed of fat (I once planned for 15 writers to have a weekly column. Let’s just say that one didn’t work.).

Every writer trying to execute that gameplan – myself included – has improved tremendously.

Which is amazing because what little ad revenue we receive is reinvested in the infrastructure of the site.

Which is amazing because all those passionate people are working for free.

That’s pretty incredible.

Watching so many different people commit themselves to a project, without the promise of monetary gain – that may be my favorite part of the last year.

In fact, that commitment is what I think makes us different, and why I maintain that, even if we’re not yet half of what we can be, we’re still way more than much of what’s out there.

We’re fans. We’re doing this because we love these games, and we know you do too.

We know that you’re looking for somewhere to read the opinions of people who aren’t concerned with creating a stir or creating a page views.

For the most part, we’ve succeeded on that front.

One day, I want to write that sentence without a qualifier.

I hope you’ll still be here.

My love affair with blogging began when I was 4 years old.

An unlikely claim, sure. Obviously, the internet did not exist back then, nor could I read or write. Perhaps more accurately, the blogger’s spirit was born out of activities directly traceable to my preschool self.

Wielding my red crayon in hand, a never-ending stack of construction paper was my story board. I discovered early on that I had a voice, a passion for story telling. Channelling my frenetic energy into an expendable creative force, I began churning out stories with a feverish intensity. I drew pictures and dictated the narrative to my mother, who helped transcribe my thoughts into their natural written form. Of course, my characters were mostly animals, and my stories chronicled their everyday adventures. (Unfortunately for them, however, there was always conflict or tragedy involved.) I would like to say that these were sophisticated allegories, rife with complex meaning. As a wee tot, I was merely flexing my creative strong-arm before sitting down to write the next Moby Dick. Well, maybe not. But the seeds had been planted, the passion cultivated. A dangerous thing to be sown into an impressionable young mind.

As a natural progression, I got my first computer, a Windows 1997 PC, when I was 8 years old. By this point, the Digital Revolution was well on its way. America was online—and so was I. This, I will argue, changed everything.

Growing up in Southern New England, my world was small and comfortable. In fact, my state is the smallest in the country—although with the best damn seafood you’ll ever encounter. Surrounded by a close-knit family, the Providence city sprawl, and a hell of a lot of water, my identity was anchored by two grounding characteristics in particular: Rhode Island culture and an Italian heritage. My world was a bubble, albeit one shaped like a cannoli.

Despite their apparent inability to stop micromanaging all other areas of my life, my doting parents—bless their hearts—were strictly laissez-faire when it came to learning. Active around the clock, I was heavily involved in school and athletics and excelled at both. Still, I was perpetually curious. The internet was my intellectual stomping grounds, and anything was fair game. My creative childsplay from earlier years set a strong precedent to follow.

Here, the tides finally turned. There was something positively addicting about this emerging Information Age. I continued to write. My narrational voice began to mature as I utilized the tools of the time to explore new economies of exression: I created “zines” with friends and published websites on freely available platforms (Geocities, anyone?). In middle school, however, I began blogging for real. I didn’t know much about the world, but I was eager—hungry, even—to learn: about science, politics, social injustices. I was 12 years old around the time when the first real blogging platforms emerged. It began to change the way I saw the world in a fundamentally important way, destabilizing my sense of self and expanding my experiential reality. There is a direct correlation between my involvement in the blog-o-sphere and my escape from my private Catholic school near my hometown. My values began to develop. I gained a new sense of what moved me. One thing led to another, and I was ruined. Rhode Island girl, gone renegade.

To illustrate, one particular encounter stands out as particularly damning evidence of my newly acquired world view and the effects it had upon me as a learner. I remember in 7th grade, a teacher proposed the following homework assignment: relate a personal experience that proves the existence of God. The smart ass I was, I raised my demure, adolescent hand and replied that it was impossible to prove such a thing. My objection had absolutely nothing to do with religion and everything to do with science; I was concerned with factual accuracy, the scientific method, and the logical burden of proof. Perhaps I took the assignment too literally, but make no mistake about it, I wanted the definitions to be clear. For the sake of science.

I got detention for that one. Needless to say, I got out of there quickly. I went to boarding school and joined a global community of learners; later, my academic interests lead me to attend an elite southern university. And here I am, still writing about science.

Ultimately, this might not tell you any revealing facts about me, but it describes an important catalyst during the formative years of my life. Through blogging, I gained passion, voice, and personal resolve. We have an epistemological duty to understand why we think the way we do and why. Early on, I learned the importance of asking questions. I believe knowledge-seeking is a virtue, and cultivating virtuous qualities is an important part of living a meaningful life. To find out what moves you is a worthwhile life project in itself, and surely the only way to achieve personal authenicity.

My autobiography is still a work in progress. I march to the beat of my own drum, just like everyone else. Despite colossal disappointments and devastating failures, I can say that I live an authentic life. The rest is inconsequential. And anyway, as a fine man once said: the secret to being a bore…is to tell everything. I much prefer though experiments.

Sumz, Samantha, $umdog Millionaire, Summé. This is just a sampling of the many creative nicknames for me floating around the Internet. But who is the girl behind the oh-so-punny Twitter handle @Sum_Dog and Tumblr blog (500) Days of Summy, and how did she get here?

First, to clarify, I am a girl. My name is a derivative of my Chinese name, Shui Sum, which means “faith” and “heart”. I have had many written correspondences with people who believed Summy is a man; I’m also friends with two different male Summy Lau’s on Facebook.

I was born in Hong Kong but raised in the suburbs of Chicago. My family and I lived in the same modest-sized home for fifteen years. The bottom half was brick; the top half, yellow paneling. My brother and I often forgot our keys, so we’d have to sneak in through the front windows or climb a tree to get onto the roof. Such were the privileges of growing up in a safe neighborhood. We shoveled snow in the winter and raked leaves in the fall, two excruciating chores that I’d come to miss dearly when we moved to a condominium halfway through high school. We had a ping-pong table in the basement, a wok in the kitchen, and slippers, not shoes, on our feet.

I’m not white, which made growing up in a predominantly-white suburb a uniquely uncomfortable experience. I still remember the first day I realized I wasn’t white. I was sitting on the bus between my two best friends, Leah and Molly, forming objects in our imaginations from white cloud puffs against a blue sky. Robbie Tomal (the Third) called out my name to ask a question.

“Where are you from?” Everyone turned to watch.

“Park Ridge.”

“No, you’re not,” he said with a smug smile. “Where are you from?”

I still wasn’t sure what he meant, but his tone bothered me. His question automatically labeled me as foreign. Other. Since preschool, I grew up successfully assimilating to everyone else but always being aware of my race. Unlike most of my classmates, I dreaded substitute teachers because I knew they’d butcher my official name. While my friends were eating Lunchables, I had rice and veggies in my Velcro bag. My mom showed up to school and passed out candy to my class for Chinese New Year.

One of my favorite things to do as a child was read chapter books, especially The Babysitters’ Club. I believe that my current career interest in reading and writing fiction comes from the time our TV broke and we put off buying a new one for months. I’m not sure if we were poor or just lazy, but it fostered a love of reading that changed my life. My favorite books are Huckleberry Finn, Harry Potter and Great Expectations. What can I say? Something about an adventurous young boy in a coming-of-age story resonates with me.

I grew up watching The Simpsons, which I believe explains the “Most Sarcastic” senior superlative that I won in high school. However, people always tell me that I come across as genuine, so I don’t know who to believe.

My dad is a pastor, physicist, audiologist, and avid fan of model planes. My mom is a social worker in Chicago’s Chinatown and yummy cook. My brother is getting his Ph. D in nuclear engineering and a Corgi. I use the term “best friend” too liberally, but my best friend in high school was two years younger than me and we went trick-or-treating until I was seventeen. He always wore the same mad scientist mask. Now he’s a Yale man.

Besides my family and friends, traveling abroad has shaped me in a way that no other experience has. Three summers ago, I traveled to Mexico City on a missions trip and saw true poverty for the first time. We did a lot of home visits to families in the slums, and I couldn’t believe the conditions that families lived in, one-room homes with dirt floors and cement walls, in the darkness, with one big bed for everyone. Yet they were so happy and grateful just for our presence, buying us fizzy drinks and thanking God for their American guests. With its dry climate, blue skies and colorful food, I felt at home in Mexico and vowed to someday return.

The next summer, I lived in Bangkok for seven weeks with the same organization and saw true poverty for the second time. I lived with a host “grandma”, an old woman called Grandma Pensri who lived in a slum on the outskirts of Bangkok where the forgotten, elderly poor gathered. All the two-room wooden homes were perched atop pitch-black water filled with litter and trash. I took bucket showers and counted a hundred insect bites. I listened to the monsoon-season rain slam against the corrugated tin roof. I met prostitutes, ladyboys, beggars and monks. I realized that my life trajectory, career goals and passions had changed.

Shortly after returning from Bangkok, I studied abroad in Madrid. I strolled down long and winding streets that had existed for hundreds of years. I rode a bike for the first time. I drank wine and turned red. I watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night, passed on the London Eye because it was too expensive, and ate a waffle in Belgium. For a few months, life slowed down.

Welcome to WordPress.com! This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

Happy blogging!

An adventure of ordinary proportions