Blog Post #3: Blog Eval

(To the right is Perez)
To start this blog post, I'm going to stick with what I know, aka, reading perezhilton.com. I read this blog, at least three times every day, and I've done this for at least two years now. In the realm of entertainment/arts blogs, I think that Perez Hilton is unique because he has established himself, and gained credibility, through his blog. In fact, before perezhilton.com, he was just an in debt college graduate with a passion for celebrity gossip.

As for blog conventions, P-Nasty has created his own, which is one of the reasons he is such a force in the blogosphere. The format is simple. There are pictures, usually covered in white scribbles, with some text below them and a link to read further. Sometimes, when the images are really offensive, you have to click a link to read it (especially helpful if you're reading at work). The background is pink. Hot pink. If crayola renamed the color, it would have to be called Perez Hilton pink because the color has become so associated with the website.

To me, this is the only entertainment blog worth reading. After a long day sitting in class, I love to unwind by reading Perez. But, a note on the comments for Perez—they're trite, irrelevant, and thoughtless, but unlike other blogs the nature of the website doesn't make me think anything of it. Ideally they wouldn't be there, but the comments on perez don't bother me as much as comments on say—the free press website, which is a legitimate and widely read news source.


Unlike Perez, the blog "Scholars and Rogues" explores news articles in a more formal fashion, picking out interesting political stories and analyzing them. While the content of this blog is definitely engaging, I thought what was more interesting was the way that the blog had created such a vast blog roll, connecting this blog with many other blogs on the internet.

I also liked the use of a survey on the left side. While the results would obviously not be scientifically sound, the concept is neat and must be fun for regular blog readers and contributors. Perez does this too, and I often vote on the blog (yay irrelevant democracy) but with completely different subject matter, and the comment section of this blog is much better, and clearly defined in the "about" section of the blog.

Overall, I liked this blog much better than the "Hot Air" blog and the Huffington Post, which I find to be visually overwhelming, with headlines that I thought were all kitsch with none of the fun. BUT I will say that the purpose of the blog, which aims to help people use media (and promote their conervative agenda) is a good tool for mobilizing people and helping those that are less tech savvy.



Speaking of tech savvy, the Geek Dad blog via the WIRED website. While this is a blog that I would never typically read, I liked the gimmick and think that it would be a good resource for parents. Like Perez Hilton and Hot Air, and Scholars and Rogues, the blog mixes technology in with the posts to help illustrate the meaning of the entries. (That's Geek Dad on the Right)



Lastly, I looked at the cooking blog "I don't know, what do you want to eat?". I really don't like that there are no pictures on this blog. Maybe I'm just visually oriented, but for me, blogs need pictures. Especially food blogs, because we "eat with our eyes" first. So instead of looking at this blog, I'm redirecting us to the fat free vegan blog, which has pictures and healthy recipes.

I cook a lot, but always vegan, so to me the lack of pictures and meat laden meals on the "I don't know, what do you want to eat?" blog make the blog undesirable both visually and content-wise. On the other hand, the vegan cooking blog is just the kind of blog I like to read and gather inspiration from.

I realize that this point is completely editorialized, but since blogging is personal, I'm going to stick with it.

Thus, I'm coming to the end of my extremely long blog eval entry. I may go back and commit a blogging sin by going back to edit this later. I am too tired right now to think. Will be more coherent tomorrow—SSS