The Various Forms of Blogging

I really appreciate all of your encouraging comments about parenthood!! They really were great, and very uplifting. I especially appreciate the two comments from the Moms of Three being very encouraging and NOT pointing out the fact that I am a total and complete wuss! Thanks, Jennifer and Amanda!! ;) My post from yesterday was a bit more vulnerable than I’m used to being. I’m very willing to be vulnerable and honest in person, but you see, in bloggy land, I am aiming for a different “type” of blog.

I would say that my blog encapsulates about 85% of my states of mind, because 85% of the time I am happy and enjoying life. I just refuse to dwell, on those other 15% of the states of mind on my blog, because, let’s face it – no one wants to read that! I don’t even want to go back and read that!

So even in yesterday’s post, I laboriously wrote and rewrote it, trying to make is as absolutely humorous as possible to desparately try to not sound whiny.

So this got me thinking again on all of the different types of blogs there are, and I’m curious: if you are a blogger, what type do you think you are? What type do you want to be? And, whether you’re a blogger or not, what type do you most like reading?

These are only my opinion here, and I think that, like personality types, no one is just “one” type of blogger. We are all mixed. Oh – and – one more disclaimer, I have over 60 blogs on my reader, I am not writing these descriptions based on specific blogs I read, so don’t go thinking I’m talking about you and get offended!!! “This Post is for Entertainment Value Only. Any similarities to real blogs is purely unintentional (or if I WAS thinking of a certain blog, I’ll never admit it!)”

The Informational Blog – This type of blogger writes seemingly to keep everyone “up to date” on the goings on of them and their family. A lot of their posts have the flow of “Friday, we went to. . . .and then today we did . . . then tonight we . . . “. Although very informative, they might tend to sometimes have a dull writing style.

The Record-Keeping Blog – Somewhat akin to the informational blog, but they make no bones about the fact that they’re really blogging to log their own family history. They start blogs with things like “This blog will probably be extremely boring, but here are things that I want to remember. . .” Actually they usually are interesting, in spite of their disclaimer.

The Whiner Blog – This type of blogger seems to find no end to opportunities to whine about their life. I mean, do they REALLY think that makes a blog entertaining? (This is what I was desparately trying to avoid yesterday).

The Realist Blog – This type of blogger manages to be “real” about all aspects of life without entering into the Whiner Blog category. It’s a very fine line they walk, but they do it beautifully.

The Entertainer – This type of blogger tries to turn all of their blogs, whether informative or random, into entertainment for the reader, and for themselves. They try to pick out the funny or entertaining moments to share from a trip rather than just the rundown of the aforementioned informational blogger. (This is the type of blog that I aim at, and hope to attain one day.)

The Informational/Entertainer – Like I said, there’s a mix of every type, but this is such a common mix that I decided it deserved it’s own category. A LOT of blogs waffle between being informative and entertaining.

The Pure Humor Blog – This type of blogger doesn’t even necessarily write humorously about their own life, they just make sure that EVERY post is funny.

The Techie Blog – This type of blogger LOOOOVES their techie stuff (I’ve been known to write a techie post or two), and they LOOOOOVE talking about it. This is a great blog to find out the newst and latest out there.

The Advice Giving/Seeking Blog – This type of blogger could be either or both seeking or giving advice. It always lends for interesting comments.

The Controversial Conversations Blog – This type of blogger loooooves to get people talking!! They love bringing up topics that everyone has a strong opinion on, and get everyone arguing about it. Also a great way to get commenters, if you can take the heat (I’m too sensitive to what people think of me to open this can of blog-worms).

The Introspective Blog – This type of blogger spends most of their posts exploring the inner workings of their soul and heart and mind. And boy do they get deep. They love to focus on the minutia of every tiny fleeting thought or feeling that they might have had since they were 5 years old.

The Spiritual Blog – This type of blogger is beautifully focused on God and it comes out in their blog. They write of wonderful truths that God has been showing them and tell how God is working in their life (I would love to write more posts in this category, but that goes back to being willing to be vulnerable and not being afraid of what people may think).

The Sweet Blog – This blog type often goes hand in hand with the spiritual blog. Their blog is always sweet, uplifting, encouraging, and complimentary. It feels like you just had a therapy session to just go visit their site!

The Rare Blog – This type of blogger hardly ever blogs, but you keep them on your reading list anyway, and wish they would blog more!!

The Obsolete Blog – This type of blogger quit blogging long ago, but again you keep them on your reading list thinking that one day they may just get a wild hair and write a post!!

The Popular Blog – This type of blogger makes all the other bloggers jealous by being so dang popular! How DO they get 15 comments in 30 minutes!? Then there’s. . .

The Superhero Blog – This type of blogger is NATIONALLY read and has hundreds of comments on each blog!! Best not to even aspire to that sort of blogfame.

The “High” Blog – Every time you read this type of blog, you wonder if the author smokes pot while blogging. . . it just makes no sense and has the most off the wall humor that you’ve ever seen!!

The “Brag about my Kids” Blog – I know, I know, I know, I fall into this category a lot also. This type of blogger loves their kids and thinks they are the best in the world, and has endless stories to tell about them (which are often quite entertaining!!).

The “Incognito to even my own Mom” Blog – This type of blogger is so conscious of security that they have no pictures, no names, no way to ever tell who they are!

The Situational Blog – This type of blogger specializes their blog into talking about one particular subject. i.e. a TV Show, a situation in their life, etc.

I’m on a roll. I think I’ll now analyze the different types of blog readers (didn’t know I was going to pick on you, did you?!):

The Oft-Commenters – These are the people that keep our blogs going. They always have a nice comment to leave, and let you know that you have at least a couple loyal readers!! The number of oft-commenters you have as a blogger directly correlates with how motivated you are to blog.

The “Mom’s” – These are the people (maybe Moms, maybe not) that do not make it a habit to read blogs, but they have ONE blog that they read religiously!! I’d say these people are usually Mom’s or Dad’s or close relatives to their chosen blogger. These people may be rare or often commenters, but their comments are always held dear.

The Blalker – This person loves reading blogs, but never comments. Ever. This type of reader drives ALL bloggers crazy because they’re trying to figure out who their blalkers are!!

The Blalker with an Excuse – They all have a reason, don’t they? “Well, I don’t know you”, “I don’t know how to comment”, etc. No excuse is an acceptable one!! :)

The Rare Commenter – This person rarely comments, but reads religiously. So you know you wrote a good blog if you get this person out of the woodwork to comment on it!

The “Read My Blog” Commenter – This person (usually a salesperson or someone of that sort) goes to random blogs, makes a comment about how their blog could help this person, and never comes back. Or, it could be . . . .

The Local “Read My Blog” Commenter – This person is in your local blogging circle, but their comments always seem to magically refer back to their own blog (I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this a time or two).

The Wierdo – This person comes out of nowhere and leaves a completely random comment that makes no sense on your blog. I had a guy from Brazil do this one time. I deleted it, and that caused a firestorm of mystery of “What comment was so bad that Rachel deleted it??!”

The Advice Giver – This person always has advice to go with their comments, whether it was asked for or not. They and the aforementioned Advice Seeker Blogger are a perfect match!!

The Every Now and Then Reader – This reader is someone that you are aware that they read your blog, but their reading is sporadic, so you’re never sure whether to reference your blog when telling them a story that you also had blogged about, or just tell them the story like they’ve never heard it before.

The Collateral Reader – This reader is a loyal reader (maybe even a “Mom” reader) to one of your blog friends, and so they read your blog collaterally. They are rarely commenters, but you know they’re there, because your friend tells you “My Mom reads your blog ALL the time!!”

This was fun! Analysis is my favorite pasttime!! :-D
But I’m sure I missed some. Let me know of any blogger or reader types that I left out!!!