November 5, 2007 How to have a successful mainstream newspaper blog
I hate, loathe, despise the blogs of Sam in the City and Sam de Brito of the Sydney Morning Herald. They both shit me to tears, to varying degrees, and for some of the same and some differing reasons. However I noticed that Sam de Brito’s has won, and Sam in the City’s has been nominated for a Weblog Award.
So, they are great at appealling to the lowest common denominator. Good for them! Just wondering if I can glean any lessons from them as to how to improve my chances of mass appeal.
Step 1/ It would seem that (and this appears to be a crucial step) I should take down the political message on my header and replace it with a personal picture of myself exuding a highly gendered sense of a stereotypically “hetero” “sex appeal” far greater than that which I actually possess. As a man, clearly this would come from being MA-CHO, as a woman, looking as non threatening, but simultaneously like the tired traditional version of “men’s ideal” as possible. Perhaps I could get one of those cheesy Westfield store ‘makeovers’ in which I come out looking like an oil painting of a porn star?
Step 2/ Change the title. Clearly, being a female I need to strip away all pretence of political engagement (and DEFINATELY that totally unladylike bad language) and instead go for some ride-on-the-coattails, done to death imitation of a succesful women’s novel, movie or tv show….Sex in the Suburbs? Desperate OfficeWorkers? The Bitch Wears Prada [actually, I kinda like that one].
I could (as done so many times, so very cringingly) try to write in the style of Bridget Jones without acknowledging my blatant theft of ideas and style…
Day One. Gosh! Got harrassed on train again. Whoopsy daisy! Meant to stop. Must try a little harder to avoid the unavoidable. Make sure I don’t raise it in polite conversation or bring politics into it. Must blame self. Dieting will help.
Day Two. Three fights over gender, two bottles of gin and a tragic singalong. Feeling FAT!
3/ The type of blog. Now whether a male or female writer, one simply must make all sorts of gender generalisations, mostly about de wimenz. If I was a male I might make them provocatively offensive, jutting my jaw in the air while I say things like rape is worse for a man than a woman (and decry any political agenda or misogyny the whole time), or bang ON and ON about how women are all the same and need to be lied to, need to be more polite in bars, don’t care about the emotions of men (HELLO???You ever READ a women’s mag de Brito? They do nothing else OTHER than try to decode and manage men’s emotions).
BUT…given I am in fact a WO-MAN, I must take a different approach to my gender stereotypes. Gigglingly, shyly, flipping my newly blond hair extensions with my hands given a makeover by horridly chunky gel nails, I must raise a couple of semi-questions “tee hee hee, are women, do you think into power instead of looks?”, ask two random passers by and draw my conclusion from their answers “golly gee, YES, women are ALL the SAME!!! They are into POWER, not sex! They will shag men to get along cos they HATES to have the sex! [Intriguingly the same load of CRAP de Brito writes about, though he charmingly concludes that women in dating are all prostituting themselves for the flowers, drinks and meals he seems to think we all want/demand/get/refuse to date/put out if we don’t get…but I degress]
“Women like MANLY men, not “Metros” [they CERTAINLY don’t like WOMEN…and UGH feminists? How UGLY and last season and totally irrelevant, cos you know, like despite rape and domestic violence stats and a general lack of bodily autonomy etc, we’re like EQUAL now!??] But you know, I asked two people, how could my generalisation be wrong? Tee hee”.
Funnily enough the conclusions of the two blogs, while claiming to have different aims, while getting there differently, whilst couching it in different language, propogate the same gender myths. THEREFORE, if I want to succeed in a mainstream newspaper blog, if I wish for my genius to be rewarded, I must (male or female) expound on the topic of WOMEN, what they *are*, *how* they feel, *who* they wanna boink, and most importantly I must not forget that they are ALL the SAME!!! Yes! It is true, I asked two people passing my office and they said, like, TOTALLY all women are the same!
4/ I must seek out a target audience who have insulting opinions on gender issues, and I must pander to them. I must put out a provocative sentiment, couching it carefully, then sit back and wait for the controversy and hate to ROLL in. In this way I avoid the work of having to say anything of intelligence or significance, avoid the responsibility for the vile and disgusting sentiments raised (see dredgirls earlier comment on this blog quoting a guy regarding punching his “Mrs”, see almost any days comments section on their blogs) and can rely on the joyful celebration of generalisations and misogyny to ensure that the numbers come rolling in.
Ah, fuck it, I can’t be arsed with this bullshit anymore. I feel ill.
Tags: awards, Bridget Jones, porn star, Sam de Brito, Sam in the City, sex appeal, Sex in the City, women's mags
- 13 comments
- Posted under Uncategorized
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L
said
This was fantastic to read. Dead on. (BTW: I don’t personally think you need the asterisked explanatory bit at the bottom, but that’s just me. I think it’s pretty clear that you don’t mean all men — just most of them.)
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fuckpoliteness
said
Yeah, you know what? You’re right. I guess I keep pre-empting the charges from agitated men who feel I am doing exactly what I accuse de Brito and *in the City* of and essentialising the traits and tastes of women and men.
I am getting frustrated that, in my own blogspace I keep taking up the position of the apologist, you know, holding the hand of those who disagree/don’t understand/haven’t thought about it, to say “Are you ok? I’m not being too *extreme* for you am I? You can tolerate it so far?”.
Thanks for pointing it out and thanks for your support to date!
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winterbirds
said
Oh gosh, thank-you so much for your blog. I have discovered L’s blog before, and have eagerly been searching for more criticisms of Asshole DeBrito’s blog. Ack, I know, I sound bitter, but his blog and a lot of his regular commenters… I can’t even put it into words how they make me feel about it all.
It is such a fucking pleasure to be able to read other people’s criticisms of his blog and feel some sort of solidarity, so thank-you!
(By the way, I noticed on one of the other entries, that you mentioned he deletes your comments? My partner works in a sexual assault centre for men and women in Melbourne, and has often made perfectly fine comments that are critical in a completely non-abusive way, but do you think they get posted? Nope. It’s disgusting. He allows all sorts of abusive shit towards women through in the comments, but not anything that strikes too close to the bone.)
I’m ranting in your blog, I apologise! He infuriates me and sickens me at the same time. It just frustrates me that people like him have a position of power to influence others, y’know?
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fuckpoliteness
said
Thanks Winterbirds…
Yeah…the latest example of this was when he wrote “The Myth of Drink Spiking”…he cited a report and quoted an “expert” he’d talked to. I got the shits at what he was saying. So I read the report. He ignored the main focus which was that *under no circumstances* should a person disbelieve a claim of drink spiking or assume that the person’s own alcohol or drug consumption was to blame. This is exactly what I did.
When I posted a comment to this effect it did not go up for three hours, and did not in fact go up til I had posted two comments asking where it was, and finally posted one which told him I’d spoken to the “expert” twice that day to clarify, that Sam was very devious in misrepresenting him and I thought he should have the “kahunas” (sorry, trying to put it in terms Sam would respond to) to put my initial post up…mysteriously of course, the first and second went up immediately…but the one which discussed him deliberately misrepresenting the expert after being explicitly warned off drawing certain conclusions never did go up.
I got the shits and I reported the whole thing to Media Watch (he’d personally abused people in his responses. I’d had a go at him for ad hominem attacks that indicated he had no actual comeback, but someone else must’ve said something, cos he went through and deleted the “nasty” bits).
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fuckpoliteness
said
Oh shit…last sentence in first para should read “This is exactly what *he* did”…not me!! 😛
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winterbirds
said
Ha, that’s excellent that you reported it to Media Watch! One of my friends told me that they reported the same entry to Media Watch as well! Hopefully they will do something with it since multiple people have brought it to their attention. (I’m a bit of a Media Watch fan – Monica Attard delivers her lines with just the right amount of delicious withering sarcasm!)
It honestly doesen’t surprise me that he did all of that. If I was the author of the report I would be livid to have my work assoicated with such tripe. I can’t believe Sam’s classified as a “journalist”. It must be a pretty wonky definition of journalism to have him classified as one, I say!
Often I feel that his blog is a breeding ground to encourage people to disbelieve a woman’s claim of assault, rape, drink spiking, a horrible relationship etc under any and all circumstances! I think that is one of the main things (although there are so many!) that really piss me off about him. My partner is pretty high up in the advocacy field for victims of assault and such, and he says that so many people on the boards of organisations he works for have serious issues with Sam, and actually warn their clients to not read or pay any attention to his blog, due to the victim blaming that runs rampant in it. Apparently there have been quite a few situations where some clients have come in being triggered by some of the crap he says. That’s just terrible — and absolutely unneccessary. Often I feel he just writes this crap to increase the hits on his blog — he just doesen’t care about the responsibility that should come with his sort of position, in my oh-so-humble opinion.
I’m ranting again, sorry!
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fuckpoliteness
said
I also complained to the SMH repeatedly that day over a number of charming comments such as something along the lines of “It doesn’t count as taking advantage if there’s no penetration”…also he went nuts at a woman who said it was the same victim blaming stuff women always get lumped with. He said “Why don’t you read *this post* on male rape you egocentric sexist. Some chicks are so intent on defending their sex they forget they’re human”. He changed that to something less psychopathic later, but not before I sent it to the SMH complaints section and to media watch. Prick.
(For the record, he basically insinuates in the post he suggests the *egocentric sexist* should read, that rape is more traumatic for men than for women…he says he’s not saying it’s worse, but the whole article is…he does this, explicitly disavows his whole point in a post so he can say “See, I TOLD you I wasn’t saying that” – but the rest of the post is *absolutely* saying that).
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fuckpoliteness
said
And yes, I love the women of media watch! Liz Jackson is an intellectual crush of mine for sure.
Also pls don’t apologise for ranting about de Brito!
And I have no problem believing the trauma he could cause victims of domestic and sexual violence. His writing is (apart from being terrible stylistically and argumentatively) completely deliberately offensive and socially irresponsible, and he has a cast of a thousand rednecks who will sing his one-eyed praises. He needs to be sacked. I can’t believe the SMH would condone his macho misogynist bullshit.
Anyway…my blogspace for ranting is your blogspace for ranting – the de Brito’s of the world certainly have theirs aplenty.
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winterbirds
said
I remember that rape post. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but it made me cry. I have quite a history of sexual abuse, and it just effected me in such a way. I wasn’t neccessarily sad… moreso, extremely pissed off. I’m fortunate enough to have had access to counselling etc and I’m in a good position right now with healing and such, but I know there are *so* many out there who are not, and some are going to read his blog and it will just deter them even further, you know? You are so correct, he really does have that whole “see, I told you I wasn’t saying that” yet the whole post implies otherwise thing down to an artform. It scares me that so many lap up his words.
I heart this blog! If I could hug it, I would, haha.
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The hornet
said
It’s generally true what you say, but here is an example of a successful mainstream blog that does not appeal to lowest common denominators (and oddly enough Evan Maloney is writing for news.com.au). I love it!
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/splat/index.php/news/comments/sometimes_surely_a_girl_just_wants_to_f/41807
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fuckpoliteness
said
Hi Hornet. Perhaps you can explain the link a little more…it appeared to me to be discussing another post of his (I couldn’t tell as he placed no link) that asserted that it was cheaper to have sex with a prostitute than with a date. So you know…just wondering if you could explain what it is you see in him that sets him apart from the De Brito’s and the Ask Sams. Cos to me, that premise reeks of ‘Women make you pay for sex one way or the other’, which leads to me getting both bored and pissed off very quickly. So I’m just thinking that perhaps you could clarify how you see it as I’ve got a truckload of study to get through and may have read it uncharitably being in such a churlish mood this morning.
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lauredhel
said
fp: And ‘retard’ remarks. What a prince.
In his defence, he does seem to dislike Kyle Sandilands.
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fuckpoliteness
said
Yeah, but that’s no radical claim is it? How can you *not* hate the prick? ;p