I have a theory that, where the Singapore blogosphere is concerned, the method by which you gain and maintain fame has a direct impact on the types of loyal readers/ fans/ groupies you attract.
Some examples:
mr brown became famous through his satirical posts on Singapore life, way back when people used Yahoo! Search instead of Google. Those posts have dwindled, but his readership remains, and may in fact have increased. Nowadays he is “Faith’s Daddy” or “Isaac’s Daddy” or “The Blogging Uncle who sometimes has funny links”. This is reflected in the kind of comments he gets (which is my measure for the kind of reader he gets): Ordinary Joes and Janes, some with kids, who appreciate his sometimes whimsical take on life, and have similarly geeky tastes.
Rockson shot to fame by expressing his opinion on the NKF saga, complete with a dictionary-ful of Hokkien vulgarities. Similarly, his comments board is also full of people expressing their opinions with Hokkien vulgarities. One Ah Beng blogs, and the rest flock to him as their prophet.
Agagooga, trademark owner of Raffles Guys School, is now a blogging force to be reckoned with. (Because if you don’t agree with him, he’ll just crush you under the weight of his… intellect.) His posts are highly regarded both for their almost-scholarly feel (debates on creationism, religion and statistics, natch) and also for their soporific qualities. He has become synonymous with the super-long and cheem blog post. And also with Wo-hen Nankan.
So the kind of readers he attracts (regular readers, not those who chanced upon his site while Googling for their weird fetishes) are similarly intellectual, are (disenchanted) Noose students, and/or might also have a thing for Power Rangers/ Wo-hen Nankan.
Where am I going with all this? Very easy. The Maxim spread.
There, do I have your attention now?
If I don’t, it’s probably because you’d much rather be looking at Sandralicious’ blog, Xiaxue’s blog or the other girls (sorry, I had absolutely no idea they existed prior to this shoot). Blogs, of course you’d be looking at their blogs, because they are such sexy girls and when guys see sexy girls and a blog address, the first thing they do is of course to check out their blogs wat. I mean, that’s the reason those girls chose to do the Maxim spread right? So that they can get more traffic?
I mean, come on, they weren’t getting paid, so the only “reward” they’ll get is publicity. Maybe they really wanted to bare themselves in a bloke mag, I dunno. But anyway: Guy+sexy girl pics+ blog address = guy going to girl’s blog.
That is actually a valid equation, since we are mostly voyeurs at heart, and who wouldn’t want to look at a sexy girl’s blog! Maybe she’ll have more pictures of herself there leh! Shiokology! The issue at hand, however, is this.
Would you really want such readers? “Hi, I’m here after seeing your pix in Maxim, i must say you are realli sexxxy, want to meet up sometime?” No relation at all to what you wrote in your blog, in fact he probably never even read it. Don’t bother writing anymore with readers like this, just keep posing for pictures. Heck, these readers won’t know the difference.
“Readers” like this don’t do justice to one as a blogger. They only do justice to one as a piece of meat to be ogled. Sure they kick up the traffic substantially, but if they don’t read, and there aren’t any more sexy pics forthcoming, they don’t return. So a publicity stunt like this will only get you a spike in readership, not a permanent increase. And after the spike comes a fall – not only in the amount of traffic, since the “readers” have gone off to the next flavour of the week – but also in the esteem in which you are held by the rest of the blogosphere.
To return to my original point: You attracted readers by the age-old trick, (implied) sex. So these readers will only have one thing on their minds – sex. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want this kind of people littering my comments board, and intruding into my cyberspace.