Skateblogging

Michael Burnett has an interesting article in this month’s Thrasher, Blog Drama, where he examines some of the more ironic aspects of blogging. While the article is supposed to be about the RVCA clothing Canada tour, Burnett uses the trip to humor us with some of his observations of the “blogsphere.” As he points out, the term weblog, or blog for short, is a rather dumb word. The word web is rarely used and log seems more like a Star Trek term than anything else (see pg.117, it’s a lot funnier). Additionally, the terms similar to blog are just as “lame.” Blogsphere, blogging, and blogger are all words that are part of Burnett considers to be the “language of the fucked.”

Throughout this tour article Michael Burnett explains how he was in a sort of competition with two others on the tour to get the best blog material. Each and every moment on tour, he explained, could constitute something “bloggable.” That is everything from “dudes sitting in an airport” to “your buddy eating a sandwich” to “someone taking a nap.” Basically the stuff people in the skateboarding community blog about, is usually complete crap.

Burnett makes an interesting observation of how a few visible people in the skateboard world have supplemented themselves by creating blogs. Being the editor at large for a major skateboarding magazine, Michael Burnett is no different. He notices that most of the time he posts some picture and attaches a few words to it for a post, someone anonymous tells him that he sucks, and he gets paid for it (126). I just wish I could get some people on here to hate on me so that I would get paid. In thinking about his point, I have reached the conclusion that some blogs function as forms of negative stimulation for some people. There are those who need to read something that pisses them off. Once that person has reached a sufficient degree of anger they then rant and rave about it simply to make him or herself feel better or smarter.

I can definitely understand the aspect of feeling smarter than the person you are attacking. After all, a lot of my own posts have to do with criticizing someone based on their stupidity. Perhaps blogging is really about primping your ego rather than actually providing something of journalistic value. Of course, I could be completely wrong here. Michael Burnett’s article really made me think about these sorts of things; a rarity in skateboarding magazines. Therefore, I strongly suggest you go to a skate shop, Barnes and Noble, Wal-Mart, or wherever they have Thrasher, pick up a copy of the October 2007 issue, and read Burnett’s article for yourself. If you’re too cheap to do that, I suppose you can go read his blog, Burnout, at the Thrasher website. (The link is to the side). However, you might get nothing but leftovers and complete crap (but it’s Michael Burnett, so it can’t be that bad). Be wary. If you don't want to do either of those things, you can scroll back up to where I first mentioned the article and click on Blog Drama; I figured I'd at least make you work for it first. Oh and by the way, great job Michael!