domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew

An incomplete list of reasons that I am not reading your blog, following your Twitter feed, or friending you on Facebook.

• Facebook is the easy one. I have not friended you–or sent you hugs, or mafia pimps, or cows, or whatever kids are sending nowdays–because while I have a tab that’s always open to Facebook, I never remember to actually use it. This is because I hate Facebook and do not care that you’ve reached the next level of Roller Derby Mafia Tycoons. I was going to apologize for this utter lack of caring, and then realized that I’m not sorry.
  
  

• Is your Twitter feed mostly retweets? If you answered yes, I’m not following you. If I wanted to read everything that brilliant and witty person you know is saying, I would follow them. If I’m following you, I would like to know what you’re saying.
  
  

• If you’re a corporation, are you Tweeting things that have a message other than “Buy our stuff, and hey, while you’re at it, buy more of our stuff! Aren’t we great?” No. You’re probably not that great. If I were interested in buying your stuff, I’d be–ready? Buying your stuff. I’m not interested in your sales pitch. That said, useful content and the occasional mention of “Hey, we have this awesome stuff”? That might get me to buy something.
  
  

• Is your blog all about your baby, your precious darling child who is the light of your life and your reason for being? Then I’m not reading it, and probably no one else–save for maybe your mother-in-law–is, either.
  
  

• Have you recently started talking about your “secret project” or “upcoming big announcement”? Because if you have, I’m not reading your blog, and if I was reading it before, I’m probably not reading it any longer. Secret projects or upcoming big announcements almost always fall into one of three categories: OMG, a baby!; You’ll never believe this but I have a BOOK DEAL; or We’re starting this company because we really believe in [e-publishing, dog tutus, delicious granola, breeding ducks made to look like Edward Cullen]. I’m pretty sure that at this point, everyone on the internet has an amazing book deal or a totally awesome new company or a super-great baby. I’m also pretty sure that I don’t really care, and I care even less when your blog ceases to be about [awesome jam recipes, book reviews, pictures of your cat wearing funny outfits, the secret messages hidden in the Gummi Bears theme song, why red jawbreakers are the best jawbreakers and are definitely far superior to purple ones] and starts being about My Book Tour, My Business Plan, My Amazing Miracle Of Life.
  
  

• Are your posts about relentless self-promotion? Do they end in “If you want the [recipe/pattern/secret of the elm trees], you’ll have to buy my book! ;)”? Your blog is supposed to have content. People read that content, and then they say “Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter!” Only for “subscribe to your newsletter”, you can put in “purchase your book”, “send you money”, or “buy your exciting course on how I, too, can become a multi-millionaire in just six months working only four hours a week”. If your content has no conclusion, no one is going to be impressed by your brilliance, they’re just going to be irritated that the exciting blog post has turned out to be yet another sales pitch.
  
  

• Are you spending a lot of time whining about how The Evil Pirates are stealing your content, depriving you of thousands, if not millions, of sales, and totally ruining your life? It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that–actually, it’s partly that I don’t care, and partly that no one wants to listen to you whine all the time. Also, complaining about this betrays a serious lack of understanding of the way that piracy and sales intersect–which is to say, people who pirate your books/software/iPhone app probably wouldn’t have bought it anyhow.
  
  

• Does your blog have any original content? It seems like an increasing number of blogs are basically posting linkdumps and/or news stories with little or no commentary. If I wanted to see the top headlines on CNN, I’d go to CNN. If I want commentary on the headlines, I’ll go to a blog. Reminder: You are not CNN.

Other things that annoy me.

• People who say things like “I just finished writing my blog.” Unless it is the last-ever entry in the blog, what they mean to say is that they have finished writing their blog post. A blog is a website in the form of an ongoing journal. A blog post is a single entry in said journal.
  
  

• Women (and men, though I’ve not noticed any men doing this) who have pictures of their children as their photo on Facebook. I get why–pictures make people self-conscious, and everyone feels like they look funny or have eight chins or whatever. But who knows what the kids of their high-school classmates look like? Even if we knew each other ten years ago, odds are that people will find something familiar about a photo of you. A photo of your kids, not so much.
  
  

• The P key on my laptop is not working as well as it should be. It’s not quite annoying enough that I’m willing to pry off the key and reseat it, but it’s annoying enough that I’m annoyed.
  
  

• Lunch. I just–I resent having to interrupt what I’m doing to eat, I hate packing lunch, I hate spending money going out to lunch. I’d rather just take a magic pill and nap for a half hour.

…that was oddly cathartic. Go ahead and talk about your hate for bullet-pointed blog posts in the comments.