brainsnorkel.com

The EFF writes a guide on how to blog anonymously right after my work colleague Girtby treats everyone at work to an email that tells people our secret blog identities. Mwahahaha…

I thought I should put him off sending it out until I had cleaned house. Or at least worked out in writing; Why do I blog?

Because I need to be the world’s #1 authority on the Google search phrase “metric shedloads?” Because I know the real story of Star Wars Episode 3?

Not really.

I blog because it’s a toy, a catharsis, a community and a way of further developing my l33t communication skillz.

My first blog equivalent was a late Saturday night radio program of no conseqence on a community radio station in a not so small rural town in the mid to late 80s. When I joined, the station had almost gone down when the only commercial radio station in town sued - successfully - because a 2ARM volunteer announcer had declared 2ARM the “second worst radio station in town.”

I became a volunteer radio announcer at the prompting of some friends and, I daresay, because my parents suspected that my roleplaying and wargaming hobby was a bit inscruitable and likely to be a bit of a dead end. Community radio was a kind of broadcast baby monitor for them.

While the rest of my school friends moved incrementally further away from AD&D, Dragonquest, Call of C’thulhu, James Bond RPG and Paranoia into rock and roll bands I spun vinyl and made up silly monologues for an audience of nearly tens of people! Maybe! More!

Who knows how many people really listened? Every now and then someone would approach me and ask if I’d play more Smiths, and less Eurythmics. Every now and then some other announcer would congratulate me on some sophisticated mixing. The surprising revelation of who your audience is was the most rewarding part.

Some announcers had a fantasy that they played to a stadium’s-worth of listeners, a veritable shed load ;) This made them buy better clothes, change their primary mode of movement from walking to sauntering, and wear sunglasses at night. I think community radio is sometimes more genuinely driven by the fantasy of announcers than roleplaying is by the fantasies of players.

Being a volunteer announcer helped with:

1. Burning all of my spare cash on new records (~= paying for hosting and domain registration)
2. Keeping an audience, numbering in the tens, amused
3. Letting me get that slightly extroverted part of my introverted personality type out there
4. Giving myself an avenue for airing ideas, even if it’s just for working out how to construct an argument

I figure BS is that same radio program delivered from Sydney with no sound and better taste in music. It’s certainly not the second worst blog on the Internet. It is also very unlikely to be sued by the blog that aspires to be the second worst.