web...blah...clown

So here we are. And hey, it’s my blog’s week-iversary!

I had a little thought: blogs are kind of like clowns.

Blogs and clowns are cheap, low-rent entertainment for the masses. Oh, sure, there are serious blogs, just as there are serious clowns. The New York Times even has blogs on their website, but some of them are actually more like columns that don’t get printed in the physical paper (kind of like clown college, if you will), and some of their blogs are just little snippets that they keep churning out throughout the day... like so many clowns coming out of a car.

Blogs, like clowns, want to be seen. They’re everywhere in this circus we call the World Wide Web. They honk and juggle and fall down, all to get your attention. Clowns get hit by pies. Blogs about pies get hits. 

And clowns, like blogs, are nothing more than carefully designed outer shells hiding the true identity of the creator underneath, masked by wigs and greasepaint and the Internet. 

When I say clowns, by the way, I do not include mimes. (Some clowns are indeed mimes, but not all mimes are clowns.) First of all, mimes are evil. Second, while a silent blog without dialogue would indeed be artistic, it would get damned tiresome seeing a wordless blog trapped in an invisible box time after time. It would probably look like this:


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Clowns have funny and/or cutesy names. So do some blogs. (I bet Bloggo the Clown and the Clown Blog are both taken.) And both clowns and blogs have unique characteristics and specialties. Some clowns make balloon animals. Some blogs are entirely about cats.

If I had to compare my blog to a clown, I suppose it might be a little like Buttons, the clown played by Jimmy Stewart in The Greatest Show on Earth. (I do not love this film, but my husband does, and as such I have seen it quite a bit...and to pass the endless running time, I imitate Betty Hutton to the hilt.) Buttons is actually a doctor, accused of murdering his wife, running undercover as a clown with the circus. His cover is blown when he has to save Charlton Heston’s life after the big climactic train crash (to all you people out there screaming “spoiler alert,” shut up. This isn’t 1952.). There’s no murder in my blog, but I like to think that there is more to it and to Buttons than meets the eye. He’s a little dark and a little sad. 

So many sad clowns. So many sad blogs. Or sad blogs with big clown smiles painted on them: Hi everybody!! Look what I did today! Look what I ate! Look what I didn’t eat! Now I’m taking a picture of my food! Look where I’ve been! I know everything about a particular topic! Look at my friends! Look at my incredible life! I’m fantastic and I have an opinion!!!  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

There are a lot of people who don’t like clowns because they’re scary. And you certainly must admit, this blog post is a little scary. Especially since some of it is starting to actually make sense. Yipe. 

Of course, there is one big difference between clowns and blogs: clowns wear baggy pants. Blogs wear no pants, and indeed many bloggers are usually sans pants as well. 

That and most blogs don’t go *beep* when you honk their noses. 

But at least this blog won’t kill you in your sleep. 

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.