The fight against "tabloid blogging"....

If you have been blogging long enough, then you may have encountered or at least heard about other bloggers who seem to have a penchant for reacting rudely or violently against other fellow bloggers or commenters who may have a different opinions. Probably you've also heard about the rather distasteful practice of anonymously leaving nasty comments on someone else's post, or worse, of impersonating another person, whether a real one, or a made up one, for the purpose of starting a word war between bloggers.

That sad truth of the matter is, yes, it actually happens.

There are some bloggers who are so egocentric enough that they think that other bloggers revolve around him or her, following every word posted on his or her blog, believing everything as if it was gospel truth. And what do they do? They use their blog to spread nasty lies and rumors about other bloggers all over the blogosphere.

Some deliberately start arguments, and I'm not referring to intellectual debates where it is issues which are being discussed. I'm talking about arguments wherein bloggers who apparently have no sense of decorum, hurl invectives, expletives, vulgarities, or ethnic and racial slurs against each other.

There are even those who adopt alter egos or other personas, carefully crafting storylines capable of competing with the best scriptwriters, feeding fiction into the blogosphere for the sole purpose of bringing in visitors by the hundreds. And while it can be argued that scripted blogs may be a form of artistic expression, nothing justifies the spreading of lies against other fellow bloggers, if only to gain notoriety.

Of bringing in visitors by the hundreds and gaining notoriety...that seems to be the bottomline.

There are bloggers who would do anything for fifteen minutes of fame and a counter hit, and I mean anything.

I've heard of one blogger not so long ago that created a virtual storybook romance in her blog, posting a picture of a Taiwanese pop star that she purported to be her boyfriend. She later on killed off her "virtual" boyfriend, in an alleged car accident. Naturally, other fellow bloggers, including myself, offered our condolences. Later on that blogger was found out, and she was flooded by tons of comments and email from victimized bloggers who felt that they had been taken for a ride. She eventually fled the blogosphere, or at least started anew somewhere with a fresh new identity.

There was also the incident of a blogger who posted nasty comments on another person's blog, yet signed off those comments with another blogger's name. While it was eventually cleared up over time, there were a lot of hurt feelings in that incident.

Some even deliberately post anonymous comments on their own blog, either to fuel some controversy, generate sympathy, incite anger, or just to get hits.

Lately I've been hearing stories about another blogger who supposedly has several other identities with blogs of their own, making the creation of highly complicated storylines possible, given the number of characters with which to develop a plot meant to generate either hate, notoriety, factionalism, or hits on a counter.

While we would like to think of the blogosphere as an ideal utopic paradise, the truth is, the blogosphere is a reflection of the real world. There are also jerks, assholes, bigots, and liars here. You're better off avoiding them if you can help it.

I consider any blogger who resorts to the tasteless activities I've enumerated above and feeds off the controversy generated in his or her own blog as "tabloid blogging." It's pathetic if you ask me.

While blogging is a way of expressing one's self, it should not be taken as a license to spread lies and malicious imputations about other fellow bloggers.

While there may not be much we can do about bloggers of this type, we should at least be wary of them. They're out there, and they're probably looking for a new victim.

All I can say is, be careful, and blog responsibly.

And IF you're one of those "tabloid bloggers," I only have one word for you people. That word is: karma.

Bato bato sa langit ang tamaan wag magalit...

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