The Blogosphere Zoopedia

6 months in the desi blogosphere, and I have had the pleasure of observing at close range, the various species that inhabit it. Clearly, it’s not an exhaustive list because as the saying goes, the universe is infinitely large, and I am not Captain Picard. So I trust that my readers will complete the list.

Random Thoughter

A vast majority of desi bloggers fall under this category. The title of their blogs follows the formula “Random Thoughts” of (adjective/adjectival phrase) (noun).

Howareyoufiner

These guys do not use traditional forms of communication, such as face-to-face meetings, telephones, email and pigeon post to exchange pleasantries. They use the comments section of their friends’ blogs to enquire thus “Hey da. How are you da? Long time no post da? Nice to catch up with you in the blogosphere da” etc.

Addmetoblogroller

“Hi. (positive adjective) blog dude. I’ve added you to my blogroll. (subtitles read – Hey. I scratch your back, you scratch mine)

Industrialmancooler

Uberfans. Will do anything to defend their favourite blog authors. “Hey you (bad word). Go take your losing arguments elsewhere. (blog author) is quite justified in denying the Holocaust.

ps: Chennaiites will be very familiar with “Industrial Man Coolers”, as it refers to those large Almonard fans used at weddings to evaporate millions of litres of human sweat.

Rageramaswamy

These types scour the net for axes to grind. With Lalita Wet Grinders. You (bad word). How dare you say (whatever author says)? Just because the internet gives you the freedom, you think you can get away with anything? Don’t think you are safely anonymous. We can track you down.

Two things to be noted. Rageramaswamies rarely provide their real email addresses. They tend to use monikers such as “(country/caste/group) patriot” or “Jai (country/caste/group)” and for some reason, very rarely use the singular. Note the “We” can track you down. They take refuge in mobs/groups and invent plurals even when there aren’t any.

Dontlikelosingargumenter

Common behaviors include deleting comments that discredit author’s point and sending private emails to explain the noble cause behind the comment deletion.

Ad-dict

Considers blog to be merely a vehicle for Google Adsense units. Top bar, side bar, Nav bar and In-post, hot links and flashing banner ads wrapped around a few words of actual content.

Contentpilferer

Standard operating procedure is – Take domain pan. Add lots of ads. Garnish with stolen content from elsewhere. Publish and serve to unsuspecting public.

Hypercommenter

People who write comments slightly longer than the Epic of Gilgamesh, but don’t have a blog themselves. These are the true heroes of the blogosphere, participating in the conversations instead of burdening us with more blogs to read.

Agendapusher

These commenters generally invoke (JC/Lord Ram/Art of Living/Other) no matter what the subject is.

Tagtagbangbanger

Bloggers who survive by taking up and doling out tags. Five things I like. Ten facts about myself. 20 Gaana songs I wish I could dance to. 100 reasons why this silly infectious tag disease is popular.

Liveblogocaster

The hardcore types who frequent every barcamp, blogcamp and unconference and blog live. 7.30 am. Dude showing powerpoint presentation. 8.30 am. Yet another dude showing powerpoint presentation. 9.30 am. Wow. What a change!. Somebody using Keynote on his Apple MacBook Pro. Etc.

Technoratiauthoritymaniac

Bloggers who check their Technorati authority slightly more frequently than the cricket score.

Sitemeterpsychotics

Bloggers who use 745 stats and analytics plugins to analyze their 500 hits a day in every possible dimension. Top posts, Top posts per tag. Top posts per latitude and longitude degree. Pingbacks. Trackbacks. And so on.

Update: Ah well. As Abi points out, things haven’t changed much in the last 2 years. Turns out there is an excellent lexicon (albeit 2 years old) of blog-related terms authored by Thennavan, here