Man, I Blog Like a Woman: Hoax Bloggers
When surfing through the interweb you come across a lot of sites which have images of pretty blond girls. Some of the webmasters really are pretty blond girls, but some most certainly aren’t. They’re guys who know that images of attractive, sexy-looking girls will generate more traffic, especially if they post comments on other sites with their avatar alongside.
I think we’re all grown up enough to know that this goes on. Still, whenever there’s a whiff of deception people are often up in arms about it. Take LonelyGirl15 on YouTube last year, whose series of ‘personal’ videos earned much traffic and discussion until it was revealed she was actually an actress from New Zealand (no, it wasn’t me).
And now there’s speculation that blogger Kumiko, who I mentioned in this post only a few days ago, may not be real either. I don’t know whether it’s true or not - at the very least her blog has some good advice - but people don’t like to be fooled.
Do you hold such trickery against the webmaster or do you admire their cunning efforts to generate more traffic or sales? Do ‘hoax’ identities work or generally fall flat?
Warning: Movie spoiler approaching…
Either way, I love Swollen Pickles‘ comparison of the man-posing-as-woman-blogger situation to The Crying Game.
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Sunday, May 20th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
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It could just be a campaign to generate a lot of traffic to the two websites…which it seems to be doing.
Not a bad idea actually.
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pmKumiko never really seemed like the person ’she’ gave in her image, an attractive girl like that writing a money making blog? Unlikely…
Usually posing as a cute girl gets readers on your side, makes you more appealing. And Kumiko seems to be liking the controversy such a subject brings, which to me is a nail in the coffin of ‘her’ real identity. Don’t make fools out of your readers, because ultimately when you look at the reflection in your bedroom mirror, only 1 fool will be staring back.
Guys like Tyler Cruz, John Chow…they are real, they post images, videos and are who they say they are. You post a photo of yourself, damn well make sure it IS you, else any growing standing you might have thought you were creating in the blogosphere will vanish faster than a Mars bar down Harry Knowles throat.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:52 amRob: I agree with you about not hiding behind a false personality (I might not use my real name yet but it’s my picture, my writing and my life) but I was a bit taken aback by your first point. Why can’t attractive girls be interested in making money?
May 25th, 2007 at 11:57 amMaybe if the majority of men online weren’t total dweebs people wouldn’t have to add fake pics in order to get attention. Don’t get mad at the bloggers- look in the mirror and ask yourselves why you are reading a blog based on the person’s appearance in the first place. How can one little image draw someone to a blog and keep them coming back? Sounds pretty desperate to me. What is it the guys are actually hoping for from the women whose blogs they visit based on a photo?
hmmmmm…
May 26th, 2007 at 2:16 am