Recently, I've heard one thing over and over about the online idol community, that honestly makes me a bit sad and disappointed.
That one thing is that there were more idol blogs a few years ago, but now it's somewhat died out.
I love reading idol blogs. I think that the best of idol blogs can make you think about something a different way, or make you think "oh, I never realized that!" There are all sorts of different ones: Review based blogs, news based blogs, and then there's commentary type blogs (like mine!). All of them have worth and have their place, and I think that if you have enough time you should start doing idol blogs!
Here are some reasons to do them.
1. Your blog is your own space to say WHATEVER you want. Granted, you can get negative feedback, if that's what you dislike. I know that recently a Momoko fan lashed out because I called her my least favorite idol. However, if you have a thick skin, it's really great to have this one place where you can get out all your thoughts about idols.
2. It makes you think about what you watch/do more. I know it's easy to just go "I love idols, yayayayay" or "I hate almost everything about idols!" and view what you do that way. However, I think it's more fun to think more critically about things. I don't mean critically in a negative sense, I mean using analysis and just thinking things through. Maybe it's my academic background (I study film/media at my university, so analyzing media comes naturally to me), but I have kind of a switch where I can enjoy things mindlessly, but I can also think through what I'm viewing, ask why I like some things and why I dislike other things, and come to conclusions. This, I think, ends up giving me a deeper experience in the idol fandom. Which leads to my biggest point..
3. It makes me feel more connected to my idol fandom and idols in general. I love idols. Love love love idols. As critical as I can be on Happy Disco, just ask my friend Dani how much I've been rambling and raving about how much I love NMB48 on Skype. However, I am not the biggest spender of the fandom. I have spent my fair share of money on idol merchandise, believe me. However, I am a college student with a limited budget, so I really can't afford to spend $20 to get every single that every group releases. I regret not spending the $30-$40 it would cost to get Everyday Kachuusha here on time so I could support Oota Aika, but that really wasn't in my budget at all. Despite not being able to purchase everything idol related that I'd like to, the fact that I put effort into this blog of mine makes me personally feel further invested in being an idol fan.
4. The community's amazing. I love the idol fan community. Even though I definitely don't agree with everything that idol fans do and there are some fan communities I try to avoid, in general I really like the people a lot.
5. Idols are amazing!! This is just a given. Who doesn't want to spend time writing about Morning Musume, AKB48, Momoiro Clover and the like?
As much as I love blogging, it has its bad points, too, that really should be considered before you make a blog or decide about doing one.
1. You will not become famous and/or make money. I watch a lot of various YouTube channels that feature one person making silly videos and making their living off of YouTube money. I think a lot of people go into blogging and video making because they think "Oh, I can make money off of this." Even if you were making a generic blog or a movie blog, your chances of becoming famous and making any kind of money is slim at best. These chances worsen if you're an idol blogger, because honestly the community's really small. I'm very lucky to get some good praise from IntlWota as well as some OK traffic. I do get some readership, and I greatly appreciate it, but this will never pay any bills.
2. It takes time. I spend a good... hour or so a day writing posts for Happy Disco. This varies a lot, obviously, and I definitely take a break from blogging when I have to focus on school work. My writing time is also not everyone else's; sometimes I see people's reviews for concerts with one sentence per performance and I feel envious, because I know that I have to take paragraphs to get out my opinions.
3. You can't write about EVERYTHING. I know that I personally have way more ideas for posts than ever get written about. There are posts I wish I had the time to do; I know that I have a few really long posts in the works but that I just have not found the time to write.
Essentially, I have one thing to say about this. Do idol blogging if that's what you love to do, not for any ulterior reason. If you do it because you want comments, you'll be disappointed. If you do it because you want money, fame or any kind of recognition, you'll be disappointed. However, if you have a lot of thoughts about idols and want to share them, I'd encourage anyone to give idol blogging a shot.
I really liked your post because it illustrates things very well :)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I got into blogging because I loved reading stuff about H!P but when I became interested in AKB48 I couldn't find as many blogs. Also, back then, AKB was relatively unknown so I took it upon myself to try and write about them in hopes that someone might start liking them and became a fan of them xD
We also would have to add the fact that I don't have anyone in real life who shares this interest of mine even remotely! And since it's my main hobby I always want to say things about everything I watch and no one cares :( so I can write them in my blog instead!
Obviously as time has gone by (it's been 3 years already) my blog has evolved to something less informative and a bit more opinionated. I wish I had time to watch as much idol stuff as I'd like to watch or to write about everything AKB ever does like I did before, but real life can be quite demanding, and since everything I write becomes a wall of text, I spend at least 2 hours writing any blog post. Yikes.
I'm rambling now aren't I? Anyway, just wanted to thank you for writing this insightful piece. I always have fun with new blogs, whether I agree with the blogger's opinion or not, I enjoy looking at things I like from a different perspective and that's what makes it more valuable to me in the end :D
Thank you for this. I have wanted to start a blog but never had anyone tell me to just get up the nerve to do it like you did (even though you don't know me personally.) Hopefully I can start one soon, I'm not really that confident in my writing skills.
ReplyDelete@Cat: Thanks for reading and liking this! I also don't know anyone IRL that shares this hobby, and while I sometimes ramble about idols to my friends I know it's not always amazing for them since they have no clue what I'm talking about.
ReplyDelete@Anon: Thank you so much for the lovely compliment! Honestly, writing skills come with practice. Every time I look back at old posts I see things I could have phrased better. Give it a try, and send me a link so I can add it to my blogroll! =D
This is a great post! I agree with most of what you've written here. :]
ReplyDeleteWhen I started my idol blog, I did it for the same reason Cat did. Idols are my main hobby, and no one I know likes them. But I have a lot of opinions on idol music, and I'm also critical of my idols alot. I really wanted to share my thoughts with someone. So, Janakya Mottainai was born! XD
And I have to say taking that plunge and making an idol blog, was the best thing I ever did. I went from someone who was basically a casual H!P fan, to someone who knows everything about H!P, and a lot of other idol groups. And now I'm covering 20 different idol groups or more on my blog.
I'm also in the same boat as you, I can't really afford to buy lots of idol merch. But I'm happy with the little bit I have. Blogging also makes me feel like even though I can't support my idols, at least it still feels like I'm contributing to them.
Honestly, though I don't find that blogging has too many draw backs for me. There are ways you can write about most of what you want to cover on your blog. I usually spend about an hour writting my various news posts on JM. And then for more thought out posts, I pretty much save them for when I have the time. Which is why my blog is mostly news posts, with lengthy posts randomly scattered around. Lol. But my PV reviews do take about an hour or more to write. There's not really a way around that. Unless you skip the screencaps in the review. XD
I have also had my share of negative feedback. People usually get upset when I say I don't like Michishige Sayumi. But people have also gotten upset when I said I didn't like Chinen Yuri, and questioned if AKB48 deserved to break a record. But it's all good, you learn to take stuff like that in stride. Lol.
Sorry if this reply is long. I agreed with this post a lot, and wanted to respond to those points. ><