Tuesday, November 17, 2009

An Open Letter To The Editors of Blogger Whoever and Wherever You Are

Please crawl back into your holes and stop thinking you know what I like.
     The people who run Blogger have a couple of tabs for those of us who blog on Blogspot. They're located on our "dashboard," and show up after we check into our blogs with our usernames and secret passwords.
     One tab is called Blogs of Note. The other is called Blogger Buzz.  I began checking out Blogs of Note when my favorite AOL blogs stopped posting after moving over here. Or they posted so infrequently they might as well have stopped.
     Blogs of Note changes quite often and I think that some of the chosen ones are rather entertaining. I'll even pimp a few with links some day. But not now, I'm too pissed off. However, so you can compare and contrast what I'm bitching about, Blogs of Note recently included one about owl tattoos, with the disclaimer that they are tattoos "of" owls, not tattoos "on" them. I am not into tattoos, but I found that interesting. 
     Another one called Nymphont was all about the fonts that some blogger creates, which anybody can use for free. I'm in the creative end of advertising so that was very interesting. 
     And there was a notable blog about table settings. That blog would have exactly one entry, if it were mine. But the author actually put together an entry with plates, glasses, and knives, forks and spoons from 1961, so you could have a Mad Men party. With a picture, no less.  It got my attention.
     So it's not Blogs of Note that I don't like. It's the Blogger Buzz that I have a major beef with. That's the blog written by Blogger geeks who use it to keep us informed about how they fix the messes they make.
     Here's a recent mess they've made, written in their own words:
     We've made the Next Blog link more useful, by taking you to a blog that you might like. The new and improved Next Blog link will now take you to a blog with similar content, in a language that you understand. If you are reading a Spanish blog about food, the Next Blog link will likely take you to another blog about food. In Spanish!
     You might discover a cool blogger who has hobbies similar to yours, has similar taste in electronic gadgets, likes sports that you're into, or has similar curiosities and interests. We will finish rolling out the new and improved Next Blog link over the next week and hope that you will enjoy discovering blogs that are likely to interest you.
     Oh please. You don't know me. I LIKED the randomness of the Next Blog. Sure, the strange languages that popped up were somewhat problematic. But for the most part it was fun to see what the rest of the world was up to.  Even if I couldn't always read what they were talking about.
     Not any more. The powers that be have taken my freedom away. THEY have decided that THEY know what I am interested in. 
     F**k. 
     In my case, that means EVERY SINGLE BLOG I click on in my Next Blog link is about weird illnesses and the people who die from them. The "editors" must have stopped by during my hip surgery phase and assumed that I like nothing better than reading about people with medical problems. Okay, I do have an interest in medical stuff. But not 24/7/365. 
     Then, for some reason, THEY decided I would not only like to read about medical stuff, I would like to read ONLY about weird orphan diseases. One after another after another. Orphan diseases are the rare diseases that nobody funds. Whose victims are usually babies or small children. The blogs are about kids who are dying or already dead, I might add. Wonderful. 
      Even worse -- no sports. No humor. No cops. No cowboys. No artists. No authors. No Gerard Butler. Just blog after blog about helpless, dying children. Is there a reason THEY couldn't choose something more relevant to a 66 year old woman with new hips and a history of wellness checks? At least something more orthopedic?
     So, Blogger editors, wherever you are, stop trying to figure me out. Because you haven't got a clue. DID IT EVERY OCCUR TO YOU THAT I LIKE RANDOMNESS? Leave my Next Blog links alone PUH-LEASE. [I realize this is not an option, since once they make decisions like this they are FOR-FARKING-EVER.]
     I have no use for control freak geeks who think they they know what I like based on some key words in my blog.  
     You people are idiots. 
     Uh-oh, now I'm going to start getting links about Sarah Palin. 

2 comments:

Donna. W said...

I haven't used the next-blog thing in ages; now I have to go see what happens when I use it (when I first started on Blogger over two years ago, it usually led to porn).
Thanks for the morning smile. There's just something about the way you vent that brightens up my day.

Donna. W said...

I'm back. I get mostly food blogs and mommy blogs. How very dull. Must be because I enjoy Pioneer Woman, because except for my daughter, I don't care much for Mommy blogs, and I don't read ANY food blogs. I don't even read the food section of Pioneer Woman.