The Value - or otherwise - of Blogs

[Guest fountainhall]

Back in March/April last year, there was some positive comment about a new blog titled bangkokbois -

 

http://bangkokbois.wordpress.com

 

Many posters welcomed its arrival. Since then, it has developed quite considerably. More than nine months on, the white on black text is now easier to read, there is a huge wealth of all manner of material about Thailand and elsewhere, along with some great photos and other illustrations. One poster recently raved after spending the better part of four days reading it.

 

I have never been much of a blog reader. I find that relatively quickly I just get bored going back to the same blog. WIth bangkokbois, I read it for a few weeks, and then, as usual, rarely returned. I only did so today because I noticed it as I was clearing my bookmark list.

 

The reason for opening the thread, though, is not to highlight this blog in particular, but to find out if other posters do regularly read their favourite blogs - or, like me, drop a blog after a few weeks, or just dip in occasionally. And what, I wonder, makes a blog so special that you always make a point of reading it?

 

I am merely curious.

[Guest]

I recently checked the bangkokbois blog and found some of the material to be very witty and entertaining. This kind of blog can be very worthwhile to read for entertainment.

 

The defunct gayboythailand & shamelessmack blogs also count amongst the finest gay thai blogs ever written. These blogs were also the type that I read purely for entertainment. In fact the gayboythailand blog was always such a quick and entertaining read, it tended to be the first site I visited. Now if the writer (Silomfarang) is still around, please feel welcome to post here.....

 

The "Simon Lover83" blog is one I read primarily for the "arty photos", although the writing style is sometimes amusing.

There are quite a few Malaysian guys writing English blogs, but I've not yet found one written by a Thai. Guess that's just the influence of more widespread English language capability in Malaysia.

Some of these blogs make a rather informal use of English, which is just fine with me, as long as the blog is entertaining to read.

I really enjoyed the following blog, but some readers were rather critical of the writing style on other forums. http://thingly.blogs...expedition.html

The blog is free, click on the link. If you enjoy it read it, if not it's easy to move on to something else that is of interest.

 

Of course something like ricequeendiary is both a valuable source of information for the inexperienced visitor & is also quite interesting at the same time. This hasn't been updated for about 18 months, so any prospective new visitor to Thailand should perhaps read some of the articles while they are still there.

 

Then in different subject areas, I may read blogs to help with the planning of travel or choice of consumer goods purchases (such as cameras).

 

http://www.ricequeendiary.com/

http://www.photographyblog.com/

[Guest fountainhall]

The defunct gayboythailand & shamelessmack blogs also count amongst the finest gay thai blogs ever written.

 

I had quite forgotten about shamelessmack's blog, and totally agree it was splendidly written with a treasure trove of useful material. I kick myself that I never downloaded or copied his various tables/illustrations of body types etc. for my own use. If he should happen to be reading this thread, I do hope he will consider posting them once again here.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Back in March/April last year, there was some positive comment about a new blog titled bangkokbois -

 

http://bangkokbois.wordpress.com

 

. . . . I am merely curious.

 

You have got to be kidding me! BangkokBois? Have you read his Turtle Ass Award speeches? He goes off on a rant about people he doesn't like, and it isn't pretty. He is vile and disgusting beyond imagination and enjoys judging people from atop his lofty pedestal. This guy is toxic and a nasty piece of work. There is a poster named Bao-bao, who is the most sincere and nicest man you'd ever want to know and it's evident when you read his blog. This is what he had to say about Bao-bao:

 

OK, time to put this puppy on the map. And today’s bitch slap . . . the very first in the history of this blog, goes to Bao Bao’s Blog, a masterful example of trite, cliche ridden writing by a closeted blogger who never met a heart string he didn’t feel the need to pull. Usually I’d include a link to whatever blog or forum I’m slamming. But in this case it’d be akin to passing along a STD to a complete stranger. And that just ain’t right. So if your masochistic needs require it, Google it.

 

Boo Hoo’s blog is a saccharine load of crap, hypocritical to a fault, and loaded with pedophile wanna be musings. Thai Smiles? How about the more honest “Scrawny Teens Guys I Took Photos Of, Most Showing Off As Much Skin As Possible”. Boo Hoo fills his blog with entries about his favorite intersection in Bangkok, never mentioning any of the guys he’s paid to help him attempt to reach an orgasm. Make no mistake about it, Boo Hoo is a sex tourist. He occasionally forgets he is in denial and mentions the word ‘massage’ in passing, or throws out the ‘bar’ word while on a different subject. But an actual post regarding any of what I’m sure are numerous experiences with sex workers in Thailand? Nope. Not a one.

 

http://bangkokbois.w...tle-ass-awards/

 

Read the rest and judge for yourself. Personally, I can't condone this and I don't see how anyone possibly can. The title of the thread says The Value or Otherwise of Blogs. The kindest thing I can say about Bangkok Boys is that this site represents the Otherwise in the extreme.

 

Give me a break!

[KhorTose]

I certainly do not always agree with this blogger, and your example is a great case in point where he is definitely off the mark. However, I do like his style. I must confess to having an admiration for sarcastic writers, whether it is subtle like Johanthon Swift or blatant like Bangkokbois. I admit to laughing quite hard on his last two turtle awards to Jabba The Butt, and Beachlover and finding quite a bit of truth in both of them, No he is not always right on, and no I do not always agree with him, but while sarcasism has been called the lowest form of humor, it definitely has a place in society. You may not be old enough to remember Gracho Marks, but he was an expert at using sarcasism. some of his famous lines. "

“No, Groucho is not my real name. I am breaking it in for a friend,” “A man is as young as the woman he feels.” “A child of five could understand this. Fetch me a child of five.” “If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.” “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.” “I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

We also have many examples by Mark Twain. "When an old enemy died, Twain said, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” On the same subject, he said: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Of the human condition, he said: “Often, it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.”

Need we not forget George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde. Mark Twain brought sarcasm to an high art form. When an old enemy died, Twain said, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” On the same subject, he said: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” Of the human condition, he said: “Often, it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.”George Bernard Shaw was not only a great author but an ardent sarcastic. He said, possibly of David Grima, “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” The fabulous Oscar Wilde said, “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”

 

I could go on and on, but what I am trying to show you is that sarcasism and sarcastic people are not abberitions.but it/they are using language as al tool that takes the concept of 'double meaning' to a whole new level.

Whether you like what he says of not, this man does have a talent for doing just that, and thus is very readable in my book.

[Guest fountainhall]

Have you read his Turtle Ass Award speeches?

 

I did read one or two quite soon after the blog started - and I noted on this Board at the time that someone included my name is included in a response - inaccurately!

 

When I checked the blog again earlier today, I did not look at the Turtle Ass Awards. Whilst I do agree with you that the one you quote is over the top, I was referring to the articles in the blog about Thailand and neighbouring countries. But I did not specify that, so mea culpa.

[ChristianPFC]

I read(present)/read(past) those that publish daily (bangkokbois, gayboythailand) daily, others that do not publish daily (baobao, shamelessmack, ricequeendiary, simonlover), I check two or three times per week.

 

Bangkokbois is polarising, to put it charitably.

 

The discontinuation of gayboythailand was announced, so I made a copy of the entire blog (I found a programm on the internet that dos it for you). However, the discontinuation of shamelessmack was completely unexpected, so I only have a few printouts of maps. Fortunately, ricequeendiary is still online (nonetheless, I made a copy of the complete blog).

[Guest]

So I made a copy of the entire blog (I found a programm on the internet that dos it for you).

Which programme is this?

[Rogie]

1. Back in March/April last year, there was some positive comment about a new blog titled bangkokbois -

 

Many posters welcomed its arrival. Since then, it has developed quite considerably. More than nine months on, the white on black text is now easier to read . . .

 

2 . . . to find out if other posters do regularly read their favourite blogs . . . And what, I wonder, makes a blog so special that you always make a point of reading it?

 

1. Re the comment from FH about the text. I said this on another Message Board, comment dated 30th March 2011

 

Talk about a badly designed website, almost unreadable - white letters on black background - whoever writes this sort of thing must not want it to be read!

 

Followed by my feeble attempts at sarcasm, (sorry Khortose!):

 

The infamous sex with dogs thread was highlighted amongst others, the poor unfortunate blogger happened to chance upon us when Reggie was in his pomp, now he's a has-been this site is once more the plaything of those muzzled to a max 7 posts a day, some of whom get around it in time-honoured fashion by cheating, and it is to them I would donate the rather controversial Baht-Stop turtle ass (or anus) award, to do with as they please.

 

2. I have never been a regular blog-reader, although I have enjoyed reading a handful occasionally but never become a faithful reader of any of them. Why?

Could be jealousy, could be I have a short attention span, could be unfamiliarity . . by that I mean blogs are a fairly recent thing, I lived without them for most of my life, why change now? Similar to Facebook, I have no wish to share my life with others in that kind of way but if you are seduced by it at an early age you can become ensnared by it.

FH goes on to ask: what, I wonder, makes a blog so special that you always make a point of reading it? I don't know the answer to that as it hasn't happened to me - perhaps if I knew the blogger personally I might be more inclined to become a fan if it was well written in a style I liked. That begs the question re style, as style is a very personal thing rather like comedy/humour, but you know when it clicks for you. I enjoy looking at photos so a blog with an emphasis on that might well appeal to me. Although it is not a gay site, Motel 69 drew our attention to the Stickman site which has some nice photos from time to time, although Stickman is a commentator on Bangkok life rather than a blogger.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Wikipedia says that as of 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence.

[pong]

I had quite forgotten about shamelessmack's blog, and totally agree it was splendidly written with a treasure trove of useful material. I kick myself that I never downloaded or copied his various tables/illustrations of body types etc. for my own use. If he should happen to be reading this thread, I do hope he will consider posting them once again here.

Agree-I went through the trouble of registering, asking permission to gain access-as the wordpress site wroks and never got a reply. For me this was about the only one to check for if some new one had appeared-and I dreaded his excusions into Manilla! Those bodytypecodes I have never understood, but his descriptions were great. I guesses part of possible probs might have been the open access for comment-sure to get the Russky or likes like GB suffers from.

For me the German Chris (he also ran a site named chriskoln) who was the writer of GBT (christian-take note-I think he was also associated to gaythailand.DE) from the carnavalesque city of K"oln was a little bit too much into pretty pictures-of guys not really my type.

And frankly: Thai cannot write- or at least in the way most westerners would approve of. Beside the english thats maybe also a diff. with Malays (as there are also zero/zil Thai blogs written in Thai about the subject). The best you can get from them are some funny comments in Thai fora about bar and massageboys.

[Guest fountainhall]

1. Re the comment from FH about the text. I said this on another Message Board, comment dated 30th March 2011

 

"Talk about a badly designed website, almost unreadable - white letters on black background - whoever writes this sort of thing must not want it to be read!"

 

I do agree it was difficult to read. But when I checked yesterday, the font size had been increased and I believe there was greater separation between the lines. It was certainly much easier. Either that, or my eyesight has improved (highly unlikely!)

[Guest Silom]

In fact the gayboythailand blog was always such a quick and entertaining read, it tended to be the first site I visited. Now if the writer (Silomfarang) is still around, please feel welcome to post here.....

 

 

I was the publisher of the Gay Boy Thailand blog you mention.

I am impressed people still remember that blog and talk about it. It ran for four years and stopped in 2009. I quit to write my Great Novel, which I did. Unfortunately the publisher didn't see its greatness but at least I wrote the complete novel so I could put that project behind me.

Since the blog days I have moved from Thailand. So the blog was doomed anyway, as one can hardly write a Thailand blog without being there.

I now live in (ahem) another Asian country, one where I don't have to deal with Thai Immigration or the repeated upheavals in Bangkok.

I have toyed with the idea of starting another, more general gay blog. But it is a lot of work to publish new material and moderate comments daily, and since Google Ads seems to disagree with my definition of what is "adult content" and pull the advertising when I least expect it, there isn't any money in it.

But I take note of the fact that many readers appreciated my blog. Some of them even seemed to get the humour. Money aside, my blog did make a little difference in the life of some of my readers. Which is good, because I don't want my effort to be wasted. Therefore, if am not destined to be a Nobel Prize author, I might settle for writing on the web again.

Maybe I will start anew with some of the elements from the old blog, such as the boy chasing diary and Officially Not Gay pop stars. I even built a mock blog with some posts, to see how it should be.

However, at the moment I am busy learning a new language (not Thai this time). I like to sweet talk the young men in their native tongue. Which means I have put any new blog out of my mind for a while.

"Silom Farang" (in absentia)

PS. In case you wonder about my Thai boyfriend "Chalerm", he is alive and well. We are still an item. This year will be our 10th anniversary.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Silom, I think you write very well. We share many of the same experiences as I'm sure many others do here as well. With only 6 posts, though-- I hope you come here more often in the future because I suspect you have many interesting things to say that would be very welcome here. Please stick around and share. If you start another blog, let us know. If you publish the Great Novel, it wouldn't take much money if you can do it yourself, and then let Amazon sell it for you. I know I would buy a copy. Judging from this one post, I think I can conclude you share many parallels with us all and that would indeed be comforting to read. Thank you so much.

 

Silom, you seem like a guy we can all relate to. Might I ask what Asian country you live in? You seem to hint that mebbe that info is confidential, but I still wanting to know.

[Guest]

SF, it's good to hear you & Chalerm are still together, enjoying life. Now if you don't have the time for a blog just yet, please don't hesitate to write the odd post here.

 

Also, good luck learning Khmer, Malay or whatever it would be.....

[Guest Silom]

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

I prefer to keep a low profile about where I live now. When I was in Bangkok I could have a blog and still be anonymous among all the other farangs. Not so where I am now. There are fewer white faces here and the scene is smaller overall.

 

Not that I am hiding. If I start a blog again readers who know the region will guess from the details where I am. But that is OK. What I don't want is to make my location an official, Google-searchable fact.

 

Another factor is that most of my experience isn't country-specific. It can be anywhere in South East Asia.

 

I moved from Thailand with Chalerm's blessing. His intention was to join me abroad. That did not happen (Thai boys and planning... ) but we visit each other across borders and keep in touch on the net. Chalerm has a fairly good job now, he can afford some travel.

[ChristianPFC]

Which programme is this?

 

I use this one: http://www.httrack.com/ and there are others availabe. It saves a lot of work (I would not want to wast my time by saving websites manually), you just start it and some hours later (depending on how large the website is), you have complete copy. You can browse the copy like you browse the original webpage, only in the address line you will see that it's from your harddrive and an added bonus is that most adverts are just white area. I now do so with every website I like. As shamelessmack showed, every website on the internet can disappear at any time.

 

I do agree it was difficult to read. But when I checked yesterday, the font size had been increased and I believe there was greater separation between the lines. It was certainly much easier. Either that, or my eyesight has improved (highly unlikely!)

 

Bangkokbois changed the style of his blog some months ago. Before, I had to increase font size (Ctrl + "+", works in any website) to read it.

 

For me the German Chris (he also ran a site named chriskoln) who was the writer of GBT (christian-take note-I think he was also associated to gaythailand.DE) from the carnavalesque city of Köln was a little bit too much into pretty pictures-of guys not really my type.

 

(To avoid any confusion: My name is Christian, that one is Chris, a different person.)

He seems to be involved in the following websites: http://bangkokboy.de/ (no new entries since 2009) and http://gaythailand.de/ and http://www.chriskoeln.de/blog/

 

I am impressed people still remember that blog and talk about it.

 

In my opinion, gayboythailand is still unrivalled.

[Guest]

There are some lovely arty shots on the SIMONLOVER83 blog today.

[Guest eradesso]

My general feeling: blogs have become the cancer of the internet.

Who the heck cares about the insignificant life and actions of otherwise completely anonymous people? What would I care about a complete stranger's eating/dressing/shagging etc habits??

 

It's a completely different story when you talk about an "educational blog" whatever topic it might be trying to educate you with.

That is why I myself loved shamelessmack as it gave me the basic facts about gay thailand full with maps and all. (still haven't understood if it's completely dead or what)

Mack was not telling the world he shagged with a Thai guy.. he was sharing all the details that other could use.. to avoid cons, let downs, diseases, useless walks down the wrong soi and whathaveyou.

 

I cannot judge the bangkokboys blog as I have read one entry on it just 10 minutes ago.. but I have felt rather unimpressed with the attack towards Bao Bao who is a seriously amazing man - I remember him from a couple years back from a freak-packed forum that I don't recall where I was accused by some paranoid life-less freaks of being some troll called LMUT or something like that... whatevvva

 

Anyways, I myself started a blog some time ago.. one of those "educational blogs" to help Pyramid Queens (is that what you call the ones who love Arabs? lol)

Then I got too busy, got a bf and forgot all about it!

[Guest thaiworthy]

eradesso, I really liked your last post above, it is a very refreshing and intelligent point-of-view. Thank you for posting it. I hope you resume your blog someday. . . I could use the "education!"

[Guest]

My general feeling: blogs have become the cancer of the internet.

Who the heck cares about the insignificant life and actions of otherwise completely anonymous people? What would I care about a complete stranger's eating/dressing/shagging etc habits??

 

Reading blogs is voluntary, cancer is not. Some blogs are total rubbish, some are very witty & entertaining.

The idea is to appreciate the good ones, but if you don't like any of them, the problem is easily solved by ignoring the whole lot.

I would argue that ungracious criticism of other peoples fine work is more of a problem than the blogs themselves.

[Rogie]

1) My general feeling: blogs have become the cancer of the internet.

 

2) I cannot judge the bangkokboys blog as I have read one entry on it just 10 minutes ago..

 

1) I think the reason for this thread, The value - or otherwise - of Blogs is to point members and readers to those blogs the poster has himself found worth reading. It would appear there is a dearth of good blogs concerning Thailand from the perspective of gay or bisexual men. So when one that is recognised by many as a good one stops it is natural to look around for any up and coming ones. In order that a few survive, many must fall by the wayside, so just as a malignant cancer will kill many they afflict, those that survive will be all the stonger for the experience and able to adopt an attitude to life, a vitality, an extra dimension, lacking in most people.

 

2) The bangkokbois blog has had very mixed reviews on this and other gay message boards. It is to be read, if at all, by those prepared to be offended. That doesn't mean to say you will be, just be prepared for that possibility.

___________________________________________________________

 

I noticed next to the Quote, Multiquote and Report buttons (bottom right hand side of posts) a new one just now - 'Blog this' but when I clicked on it I got an error message. Could be an interesting development . . .

[Guest eradesso]

Reading blogs is voluntary, cancer is not. Some blogs are total rubbish, some are very witty & entertaining.

The idea is to appreciate the good ones, but if you don't like any of them, the problem is easily solved by ignoring the whole lot.

I would argue that ungracious criticism of other peoples fine work is more of a problem than the blogs themselves.

 

Thanks for teaching me about freedom and free will.. at 31 years old I still didn't know that I could refuse to read something I'm not interested in. Does that mean I can finally unsubscribe Vogue Bride???

 

I was simply stating which kind of blongs I am interested in and find VALUABLE as the thread suggested, and which otherwise. I didn't say no interesting blogs exist nor thatanybody's writing is a waste of time, I am saying it's a waste of MY time to read mere ordinary actions of someone I don't even know.

 

And to dwelve further into the metaphore of the cancer, think of the blogs under a sociological point of view, what they have done, like any internet application really: people have come to care and discuss facts, opinions, recipes or whatever with people they don't even know while in the meantime they cannot give a damn about the poor woman in need on the second floor of their condo building, or a homeless who's freezing in their own road, and even worse, they barely remember to stop and ask their friends or family members HOW ARE YOU?

[Bob]

Thanks for teaching me about freedom and free will... ..... ......... I am saying it's a waste of MY time to read mere ordinary actions of someone I don't even know.........they cannot give a damn about the .......

 

As I don't read them, I have little clue about the blogs and wouldn't venture to offer an opinion. And, having no experience with writing blogs and miniscule experience with reading blogs, it'd be difficult for me to conclude just yet that reading the blogs would be a waste of MY time (please excuse the capital letters as my little-old time really doesn't have much value; I just wanted to stay within the spirit of the moment).

 

But in the spirit of learning something new every day (don't fret, I'll forget most of it by tomorrow), it's nice to learn about the concepts of freedom and free will and, of partifcular note, learning your exceptional psychoanalysis of the state of mind of the hundreds of millions of people that write and read the blogs. An amazing feat and analysis given that you, of course, wouldn't waste YOUR time reading any of that stuff.

[Guest eradesso]

learning your exceptional psychoanalysis of the state of mind of the hundreds of millions of people that write and read the blogs. An amazing feat and analysis given that you, of course, wouldn't waste YOUR time reading any of that stuff.

 

Don't flatter yourself, it wasn't an exclusive gift. It was just a copy and paste from Jung's blog