A couple of us – we’ve been talking about you. I know it’s hard to hear but, well, it’s your user profile. It’s just, you know, kind of blah.
Don’t worry. It’s cool. I am here to help. Not just help. I am about to blow your mind with some suggestions on ways to update your user profile. I may well get kicked out of the Freemasons for telling you all this, but I am willing to risk eternal damnation and evisceration on your behalf.
You can thank me in the comment section below or via PayPal.
1) NAME: Could you please just put your full name on your blog? And by that I mean your real name -- assuming you remember what your real name actually is. Please. If you use some pen name like Wild Cherry or ChainMale, then it’s going to drive people away. Normal people, I mean. When I see a nom de plume used in place of a blog writer's real name, I think deadbeat psycho pyromaniac cult leader. Like seriously. Jim Jones on meth. That level of nuts. Just come clean and use your real name on your blog. Chances are nobody's reading your blog anyway so you're completely safe.
2) PHOTO: Do not include your pets or children in this photo as some people are offended by cute and cuddly things. I, myself, hate pandas. Do not include a picture of a panda if you want me to visit your blog. Also, do not include a photo of you that’s been taken from 25 yards away near some notable landmark, like, say, the Grand Canyon (“That’s me down there on the third burro from the left.”) We want to see your face and stare into your eyes. We want to see your sideburns and compare them to our own. You can tell a lot about a person by her sideburns.
3) BIO/INTERESTS: Contrary to popular belief, a bio should try to hit all the major points of other people’s interest, not your own. We don't care about what you care about. We care about what we care about. And in case you’re not clued into pop culture, I’ll just tell you straight up that what you should refer to is Nascar. I don’t know why, but Nascar is what makes America go round and round. 500 times. Make sure you mention which driver/team you support. And not just that. Mention your favorite pit crew guys, too. That’ll prove the depth of your abiding love for this “sport.” (Oh, also, don’t put quotes around the word sport ‘cause that just riles people up). And, hey, you never know. You might end up with some decals on your sidebars and earn some advertising bucks. Right now, I am wearing a Castrol GTX team jacket and matching hat, for which I earn $8 a post.
If you want to go for the elitist crowd -- which is to say, the non-Nascar readers -- here’s what you put down as your interests: in your spare time you study famous chess maneuvers by Gary Kasparov, you write code for a gaming software company, and you are editor-in-chief of your regional literary magazine called Bazooka! Other kinds of obscure references to extremely hip things that only the in-crowd will get are also permissible. If I may make a suggestion: Japanese heavy metal bands are huge right now. Claiming to be a huge fan of stuff nobody else even knows about is a great way to alienate people, and thus, it will draw people to your blog.
5) FAVORITE BOOKS/MOVIES/MUSIC: Be very careful. This is where a lot of you are falling down. Under no circumstances should you list LOTR as one of your personal favorites because we all know that you only watched the movies and didn’t actually read the trilogy in its entirety. We all know you’re just about Orlando and Viggo, which is to say, superficially engaged in hunk-staring rather than focusing on the epic fantasy elements. It makes those of us who actually bought replica One rings from that catalogue that carries elf stuff and Harry Potter wands really, really angry. Here’s my rule of thumb: You may list only five movies. One of them must be a movie directed by Guy Ritchie -- and this is key -- BEFORE he married Madonna. Another must be Harold & Maude, especially if you want to draw an edgy crowd that takes a lot of Xanax. Those people are up all night and they read blogs like there’s no tomorrow. Because they think there might not be.
Well, that's it for now. If I think of any other tips, I’ll let you know or you can just use my user profile as a template for your own. I hate to see good people and good blogs not getting the attention they deserve, all because of a lame-o user profile.
Also, you may notice that I’ve finally put a picture of myself up here on Ye Olde Blogge. Please understand that this is an extremely good photo of my person. It was taken after I had my hair done and teams of stylists used advanced laser blow drying technology to render my hair straight. Normally my hair is a lot more fluffy. Like, imagine Chaka Khan and Bozo the Clown had a love child. That would be me.
