Under normal circumstances I try to be my chipper, fratty-go-lucky self, and maintain focus on my purpose and goal of bringing sharks and higher education (especially fraternities) closer together. The last thing I ever want to do is bring even a sliver of negativity into the mix. There is already enough of that around. Am I right? But for just a second, if you’ll let me, I gotta air one grievance. After all, you can’t be nice all the time.
I don’t like the word “blog.”
I don’t consider myself a “blogger.” I don’t consider what I’m doing right now “blogging.” I’d like to think that what you’re reading right now is an “article” on a comedic or satirical website. I never considered TFM a blog.
When I first learned the word “blog” I was not terribly internet-savvy. As far as I understood, a blog was nothing more than a public diary, usually just the quiet girls in school that knew how to navigate the early internet and blog websites. HorseGurl123 could go there and get emotional support, validation, and you-go-girl’s from other bloggers when she made a blog onto her page. And they all just read each other’s diaries and commented (if they even had comments at the time).
The word it self is shortened from web-log. Making a log into anything sounds like a continuation of a singular entity, like an entry into a diary, NOT like singular, self-contained articles about different things that just happen to fit under the umbrella of fraternity life or at least young adult humor.
But when it came out, TFM had something to SAY! Eventually it had community to ENTERTAIN and INTERACT with. That’s not a diary!
That’s not HorseGurl123. That’s BoaTies123 (see it’s a pun on boats and bow-ties, Conall, you missed that on Twitch stream, champ. Guy actually said “boat-ees” like little boats) writing a satirical, stand alone piece about how many types of wet boobs there are at a foam party.
I realize a lot of people don’t even remember the origins of TFM, so maybe a quick history lesson is in order. Perhaps a full ARTICLE is in order for another time. But to keep it short: in the beginning there weren’t even blogs/pieces/articles to read at all. It was just a community and the editors took input from users, or came up with stuff themselves and published the funny ones on The Wall as Total Frat Moves. Only later did they start adding pictures and one or two articles at a time. But once they did, the pieces had their own section on the site, seperate from Pictures, Merch, and The Wall. And the name of the section? Articles. Even now, the Archive for #ClassicTFM has the Articles section, not the Blog tab.
“Oh what’s that, babe? No I don’t get on TFM to look at Rush Boobs. I read it for the articles. See I’m on the Articles section.”
If you come hang out on Twitch you can see what we were working with back then. Head on over and give it a follow. They react to #ClassicTFM pretty often, let ’em know that’s what you want to see. I’m often lurking in the chat, myself.
So maybe I’m just old enough that at the time I learned it, the word meant something so simple and casual that I wrote it off and never thought about it again and in fact it actually means something more honorable than I ascribed to it. And maybe TFM changed so gradually from something else INTO a blog that I didn’t even notice.
I dunno though…
Ahhh, but what’s in a name? A nose by any other name can still smell as well. And what’s wrong with being a “blogger?” As long as they’re still paying me the big clams, which they’re not… and I’m still getting to put out some good words that SO many people seem to love…
Nah…
I’m SharkWeekTFM; I’m a writer, and I write articles. Chomp on that.
