June 23, 2011

What Not To Blog About

The other day I clicked onto my friend Mark Dapin's blog, and I was horrified. Mark had posted a picture of a man - presumably a fan of his - wearing nothing but his underwear, several bandaids, and a catheter strapped to his leg.

Now, Mark is a prominent Fairfax journalist, and the author of several excellent books. And yet the man clearly has not the slightest clue about how to write a blog - at least not one that will not induce the gag reflex in all but the strongest stomach-ed* of readers.

I had met with Mark the previous week to discuss his blog. I gave him several tips on how he could attract a wider blog readership, and 'include a picture of a man in his undies with a catheter strapped to his leg' was definitely not amongst them. However, clearly I had not been specific enough, because - as Mark pointed out to me in a subsequent email - I did not tell him not to post a picture of a man in his undies with a catheter strapped to his leg. So to Mark and his readers, I apologise. I have failed.













Still, I am nothing if not conscientious**, and I am determined to rectify the situation. So here is a comprehensive list of things for Mark to Not Blog About. Feel free to add your own points to the list, and of course you are all encouraged to Not Blog About these subjects yourself.

Mark, Do Not Blog About:
  • Men in undies with catheters strapped to their legs.
  • Your bowel habits. They may be utterly fascinating to you - I have noticed that many men are utterly fascinated by all of their bodily functions - but they truly are of no interest to the general population (except, of course, for colorectal specialists, but such a small percentage of your blog readers are likely to be colorectal specialists that this is entirely inconsequential).
  • Anything at all to do with breakfast cereal. Despite the best efforts of advertisers to convince us otherwise, breakfast cereal is intrinsically boring.
  • Your scrotum, or indeed any man's scrotum. Scrotums are silly and we don't want to read about them.
  • Bits of your body that have fallen off. That is just disgusting.
  • Things you have found between your teeth. That is also disgusting, and there are probably many more of them than bits of your body that have fallen off.
  • Things you have found in your navel. See above.
  • Delightful anecdotes about your kids. I mean, I'm sure they are very delightful, and there are many anecdotes about them, but we only want to hear about what they do wrong, so that we can feel better about how useless our own children are.
  • Delightful anecdotes about your partner. See above.
  • Anything at all to do with the Kardashians. Oh you'll get hits on your blog all right. But I will unfollow you like THAT.
*and no, I'm not sure this is actually a word, but you get my drift
**actually, I am many things if not conscientious, but this is not the forum to discuss exactly what things

11 comments:

  1. Oh shit. Belly button lint. That's where I've been going wrong. Thanks for the heads up Sackville! xx

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  2. Love the 'delightful anecdotes' sections.
    If I dare blog anything non derogatory about my family, home, work or self  - I feel like a total up-myself, full-of-crap, brag-bitch, rainbow-unicorn-loving hippie.
    got to go check out this  car crash/pic for myself.
    Mum on the Run
    :-)

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  3. Whatever you do .... Dont say Fanwah. I lost 42 followers the hard way.

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  4. Oh I'd NEVER blog about the fanwah. The clitoris, on the other hand... now THERE'S a blog topic.

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  5. Don't put pictures of your kids sitting on the toilet. It's great that they're potty trained, but give the poor things some privacy. You wouldn't post a picture of yourself on the toilet would you? (Hopefully the answer to that is no)

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  6. YES! I mean NO!!! No I wouldn't put pics of myself on the toilet! And NO don't put pics of your kids on the potty. So YES! I agree!!!!!

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  7. For me, washing powder. Sorry, but there it is. And catheters.

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  8. An exception to the rule about kids stories is Kelly Oxford, the most successful blogger I know of right now. It's all in the way you tell the story. The woman is hilarious. Really.
    http://kellyoxford.tumblr.com/

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  9. Hmmmm. Yesterday on Twitter I spent about two hours telling the internet world about the afternoon I had just spent with my 11yo son... which involved a scalpel, his foreskin, blood, the term "manual retraction", 40 minutes of manual retraction, latex gloves, snot on my new top (his snot, not mine), tissues, screaming, and the instruction that my son spend five-ten minutes each day tugging at his newly liberated foreskin.

    It's really lucky I don't blog.

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  10. Vomit stories are also a no-no.

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