Boys will be bloke bloggers

The Hindustan Times, June 19, 2008
Myth-buster # 1: Men are blogging away and most of them aren’t tapping away about sports and electronics, but about health, fashion and – of my god! – home improvement

Here are two of the greatest myths about men: one, men don’t blog much; two, men think about sex every seven seconds. A quick search reveals that not only do men blog, they do so on topics other than HTML codes or battery-operated devices. Relationship author John Gray and company have long blamed men for being ‘non-communicative’. Not in cyberspace at least. The boys blog it all: weight, fashion, relationships, sex – and even – babies. Sample this: “The gym is a place that used to silently mock me whenever I walked by: Hey fatty, you enjoying that fifth slice of pizza?” blogs Arjewtwino. While he discusses weight issues and fashion – “I just don’t know what to wear, I’m packing for my trip to NYC” – he also writes on ‘men’ subjects like his favourite soccer team, food (a favourite with boy bloggers) and being kicked in the gonads. “…I always wondered from the worst moment of my life: what was the science of getting hit in the nutsack?” he writes, not something you’ll find on a woman’s blog.

Despite blogging on similar issues, humour differentiates ‘bloke’ blogs from the ‘babe’ ones. If ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ is the underlying tone in babe blogs, the boys do it in a more self-deprecatory manner. Even home-maintenance sounds funny. The Home Improvement Ninja blogs: “I had hoped that by killing all of them (mice)… it would forever deter others from ever trying to come back. Unfortunately, mice have a short memory.”

While ‘tags’ (blog lingo for topics) include hitherto ‘chick’ issues – no moisturizers yet, but grooming figures – don’t think that bloke bloggers are any less ‘men’ than the boys who only blog on tech or electronics. However, they do seem more open in challenging so-far accepted-male-behaviour. Tearing apart the much-man-loved movie Fight Club, the Ninja blogs: “Some guys think this movie is great… (they) hide their insecurities by fawning over this homo-erotic ritualized violence and faux philosophy about why it's okay to be a underachiever with no direction.”

While he declares “all men are liars”, 2006 Best Weblog Awards-winning blogger, Sam deBrito too does his bit in accepting men might not always be right and takes on the how-to-be-man concept. “I had also unknowingly bought into the gender propaganda that insists a guy must be A, B and C and done my part to propagate it to other men and women,” he writes. An insight into the mind of men is what bloke bloggers have to offer, peppered with sports statistics and humour. And it seems, at times, honesty.