There is some amount of truth in the “power” of blogging. Believe it or not, but your words online do have an impact on your readers, even on those who are not exactly your fans. And if the readers are your fans, then your blog posts can have an even stronger, long-term effect.
Yes, your words can leave some of your regular readers feeling betrayed.
Here are some ways you can unwittingly (and perhaps unintentionally) exemplify betrayal by blogging:
1. Attack people in public online communities, and afterwards turn those microblogging communities private (after the object of your attack gets wind of what you Twitter-ed). This is the “Twit-Tago” style of microblogging.
2. Have a plagiarized blog post appear in one of the blogs in your network, and then when asked about it say something along the lines of (please note that these are not direct quotes):
Blogger: I don’t know how that post got in there…
Me: Uh… do you suppose your blog was hacked?
Blogger: Let me check with [name of person who posts in that blog]… (and then soon after) M’kay… The blog post has now been edited.
And then… silence. I mean… is that it? Was your blog hacked or what? Any findings after your “let me check”?
This is the “Plagia-Dedma” blogging style.
3. Attack a parent online and impute unethical and immoral behavior (using “proof” which couldn’t stand up against simple questions), and then just delete the post.
This is the “Batok – Bura” blogging technique.
4. Add people to one of your online communities, rally them to your cause, and then un-friend or kick out of the community someone who merely Plurks a valid question or counter-point about a topic you posted.
This is the “Dagdag-Bawas” tactic in Plurk-tatorship.
5. Identify and attack specific people in your blog post, call a father and his son “equally dysfunctional”, influence other bloggers to form a strong judgment (partly because of emotion-laden words such as “dysfunctional”), and then later delete those high impact words with nary an explanation in the blog post itself.
This is the “Insult First-Go Ironic Next” blogging method where two contextually different sentences are presented as being the same (or allegedly having the same meaning).
What is the result of such things? Well, some bloggers have strong personalities and will not meekly turn the other cheek. For example, when Ca T blogs I just felt tired, you will sense a certain history, if you will, with high and mighty bloggers.
When Reynz publishes Royal Blog Santacruzan, you’ll easily see something that sticks out. That’s an example of the long-term effects your blog and Twitter messages can have on others.
Even Bluepanjeet blogs about Credibility and relates it with something important in his life. Do you see how a blog on a fragile screen can intertwine itself with our own lives?
And what about Rom’s It’s Your Blog… I don’t know about you, but after reading that blog post, I sensed that Rom felt betrayed.
Your words can galvanize your readers, influence their thoughts, inspire them to take action and go to battle with you. Your words can rally people behind you and press forward towards what you and they fervently believe in.
And when you simply delete or take those important words back (and not make an appropriate disclosure), won’t that feel like betrayal by blogging?
How would you feel if a blogger you believe in and respect stokes your emotions (through the power of that blogger’s words), gets you to take action (partly because of that blogger’s words), and then silently deletes those important words?
Subukan natin ang Filipino para higit na malinaw:
“Pakiramdam ko, nilaglag ako.”
Which brings us to the Blog-Tagalog or Blogalog Word of the Moment:
NILAG-BLOG – Kapag nahuli ang iyong puso ng isang blog post, pagkatapos ay bigla na lamang buburahin ng blogger (nang walang paliwanag) ang mga salitang gumising ng matinding damdamin sa iyong pagkatao.
“Haynaku… nadenggoy ako nung isang blogger, oh.”
Ha? Bakit?
“Wala… nilag-blog ako.”
