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What's a Character Blog?

Dave, I've been reading all sorts of stuff on different weblogs about "character blogs", but I'm still not clear on what they are and whether they're a good thing or not. What's your opinion?


Dave's Answer:

Quick: is Dave Taylor a real person, or fictitious? Am I one person writing, or a group of people working together but publishing under the rubric of a single identity?

Those two questions are the crux of character blogs and you're right, it's the buzz of the moment. In a nutshell, character blogs are blogs written by fictitious characters, whether human or otherwise. Some examples: Captain Morgan's Rum, McDonald's Lincoln Fries, "Moosetopia" and Barbie.

Some of the interesting articles I've read on this subject come from BL Ochman, Neville Hobson, Susan Getgood, Tris Hussey, Steven Streight, Amy Gahran and Shel Israel.

My personal opinion is that since anything goes in the world of blogging, character blogs are an interesting experiment and I'm glad that some companies are pushing the boundaries to see what will transpire. That the more vocal minority of the blogging community sees this as an "attack on authenticity" suggests to me that they need to expand their minds a bit to encompass this new experiment. It's really rather naive to think that any communications tool can be "pure" in any sense of the word, particularly when you then ask the obvious question: who decides what's pure anyway?

The crux of the matter shouldn't be "is it a real person?", but rather "is it worth reading?"

I have read many excellent novels that are written in first person: is that a violation of the unwritten pact between author and writer, does that lack authenticity? Similarly, how many movies have you seen where you are privy to the thoughts of the protagonist because of voice-overs? Are those some sort of sneaky trick, implying that the actor or actress is really having those thoughts?

Years ago, I wrote a gossip column for a tech magazine under an assumed name. In fact, we made up the name Raymond Rank, a combination of Raymond Chandler (for the writing style) and Rank Studios (for the inevitable newsreel and because I love the gong visual at the beginning of Rank movies). In years of writing the column we never received a single communication that complained about "Raymond" not being real. Other fictitious tech columnists are in the same boat, including Robert X. Cringley (I know of five people who have variously written that column) and "Spencer the Kat".

My final thought: character blogs are fun and interesting experiments, even if some of the current attempts are rather lame. Bloggers who believe that the medium is too fragile to withstand these variations, these marketing attempts to exploit the zeitgeist of blogs just need to lighten up.

I mean, c'mon folks. Once someone does a good, amusing character blog everyone will suddenly decide that it's rather cool after all.


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Reader Comments To Date: 5

Tris Hussey said, on April 19, 2005 7:32 PM:

Dave, Thanks for the ping and a great post. I, of course, couldn't agree more.

Blogging is, at its core, about writing. Hopefully good writing. And although I'm not enjoying the Moosetopia blog much--there was an interesting post yesterday, though--I welcome the "Moose" to the blogosphere and kudos to them for trying.

Some good ones said, on June 28, 2007 11:56 AM:

I think that there are some pretty clever character blogs out right now. Like Fake Steve Jobs and the new fake Bono Blog
http://bonoblog.com/
I think both are pretty good

Ricki said, on November 14, 2008 9:47 AM:

Im looking for special characters like stars

arturo granados said, on July 6, 2009 10:50 PM:

when I get a call,on skype,30 seconds after,Iloose comunication,how can ,I FIX THAT PROBLEM,please help me,thank you

Matt said, on December 27, 2010 2:16 AM:

I think character blogging is a great idea. It's definitely a good way of standing out from the crowd.

It can be problematic, though. People tend to take things on face value and assume that everything is what it says it is. So unless you make it really obvious that your blog is written by a fictional character, they will at first tend to think that it's for real.

I have a satirical character blog here:
http://www.dereksapphire.org/blog.php

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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