Saturday, July 25, 2009

Rage Against The Tags

I have been busy doing nothing for the entire week. As a result, the blog suffered blatant neglect. Time to make amends. First, a few important acknowledgements:

1. Thank you Preeti for the card here. Preeti is a lovely lady and a gifted author with a fantastic blog and book. I am overwhelmed with the praise she has bestowed in her post and in comments.

2. Thanks Jason for the wonderful contest. My entry squeezed into the Forties club. Quite relieved to be there since I was afraid of loosing too many points over a few technical flaws, especially due to the discontinuity in the flow of the write-up. I was pretty pleased with the idea though; plus the fact that my last name begins with D, pushed the entry into the club.

3. A big thanks to Choco , Nicky & Ekta for the tags, award and wonderful words of appreciations on your blogs. Readers, please do check out their super-cool blogs (click on their names for the links). They are a treasure to have as fellow-bloggers.

However, I am not a huge fan of “Tags” when it comes to me doing them. I must justify. Reasons follow.

This (and most of the blogs I read) is a personal blog with some novice fiction thrown in once in a while. Regular readers have already been awarded with the information that I have stayed in Dewas, Kharagpur, Gurgaon and Bangalore, and hence I refuse to explicitly answer “Four places you have lived?”.

Point is that I am not willing to let anyone have the voyeuristic pleasure at my expense so easily. Not that I am a secretive person. A keen observer of the blog wouldn’t fail to notice that I have already exposed my navel and nipples on more than one occasion. You gonna have to read the blog for knowing more facts about me like the sadistic tendencies towards insects in general.

One of the tags carry the question “Nice stomach or arms?”. Well, well, well. I don’t deny having a preference (marginal though), but wouldn’t you agree that I try real hard to be subtle in my writings? Besides, isn’t there a strong co-relation between the two anatomical features? I guess, one has to morph a photo of a beautiful person twice, once with ugly arms, once with a paunch, and then present it to the world to get an honest answer. [One isn’t an economist unless one says “Ceteris paribus” in every argument.]

I am never in favor of generalizations without scrutiny. Feminists, please don’t take me to the court for claiming this: “Tagging is a girly concept”. Look at the topics : favorite colors, number of children you aspire to have, burnt by love, last text message you received, last furry thing you touched, first thought when you looked at the mirror. Yes, such questions are theoretically applicable to males too, but I advise secretly taping male conversations to investigate their inclinations towards such matters.

Some questions are totally gender dependent and needn’t be there at all. Like “Would you kiss a stranger?” is mostly answered by females in negative. Some just say “depends”. All males would be slightly more eloquent here and say “depends on the gender”.

If tags were a male phenomenon, then first thing to disappear would be “Four things about you”. Four is a big number when it comes to talking about ourselves. See what Dphat had to resort to when asked about “Four places you would rather be”. Two is the most we can handle. Easy to tell two favorite sports, drinks (Beer & Whisky), cars, ..., you get the drift. Also, you would have to replace the choices like “Eyes or Lips” with relevant ones like “Bust or Bum”.

I rest my case against (me doing) tags now.

Forthcoming weeks shall see more activity on this blog. Increased quantity would lead to a temporary slump in quality of the posts from 10 paise per dozen to 5 paise per dozen, but that drop is essential to practice and reach to the level of 15 paise per dozen. This is what I like about writing: The more you write, the more ideas you get.

I was going to end the post on that positive note, but as these last words are being typed, the fan above, for the first time in three years of its existence, is making strange noises. Spooky night on a third floor in Bangalore.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awww...I am soo honored! Thanks :)

& you wrote a post about why you won't do tags..lolzzz...
"Point is that I am not willing to let anyone have the voyeuristic pleasure at my expense so easily."-So true!
Join the club of tag haters...I do em but have stopped being truthful & will never pass on the darn thing to another blogger :)

Shruthi said...

womygawd..switch it off. Stay away from it. or go get your tape recorder ;) :P
and yeah initially when i started blogging I thought getting tagged was cool. I still do ;) No. I create my own tags out of boredom.
yes, i lead a boring life.

btw congrats on getting into the forties club :) yey!

Deepti said...

Aila..:)...har question ki le li hai big time..:))...hmm agreed that many tag questions are not at all thought about before framing..but somehow i feel answering them off the cuff is fun..:))..anyways all personal preference...:))...

Deepti said...

and ye congrats for winning the card..:).

Amit said...

hi5 dude, even i hate tags, i call them torchure !

Destination Infinity said...

I do agree that the tags and the questions in them are mostly girlish!! As a part of your action plan, I hope we can see more fiction too.

Destination Infinity

Tranquility Speaks said...

I equally loathe tags and for almost the same reasons as you!! How should it help anyone to know what my favorite color or cuisine is! Whatever!

On a parting note: I must say you write exceptionally well and your entry into the forties club was definitely well deserved!

Preeti Shenoy said...

Thank you for the praise-in-return :)

For a person who does not want to give voyeuristic pleasures to others so easily, you do remarkably well :-)

May the dime a dozen ( be it pence or paise) flow like never before :)

Cheers
preeti

Shanu said...

How strange! You hate tags and here i was waiting for sum1 to tag me till gkam finally did the honors..i haven't replied to the tag yet...but in sumway i now feel like i m finally a blogger!

Yeah i m weird!

Stupidosaur said...

Tag it easy man!

BrownPhantom said...

@Choco,
Yeah, trivial issues must be given importance too :). And I did notice that in your last tag (not being truthful) :).

@Shruthi,
Thank you so much for the concern:), the fan mended its way on its own. It's ok if you like doing tags, this post was more against me doing the tags than the tag themselves :).

@Deepti,
Hee hee. Yes, rightly said. Personal preference :). Thanks .

BrownPhantom said...

@Hopelesee ROmantic,
Hi5 bro !! Thanks for dropping in :).

Destination Infinity,
Yes yes. I do plan to increase the frequency of fiction posts, though I am not very good at it . Thanks :).

@Stillness Speaks,
Good to see ladies on my side too :). Thanks for the kind words :)

BrownPhantom said...

@Preeti,
You're welcome :). Let's see whether I deliver. Thank you again :).

@Shanu,
Hee hee. Your are probably closer to being normal when it comes to the reaction towards tags :). Congrats for the feeling of graduation :). Thank you so much.

@Stupidosaur,
It's difficult and inconvinient :).
Thanks :).

RiĆ  said...

ha ha!!interesting....i m reading a post on why somebody hates tags. :) interesting.

Meghana Naidu said...

me no feminst ( just an equalist :evil grin: )

me will say an emphatic "yes if they smell good"

me will write about poverty, beer and sleeplessness only

me refuses to respond to eyes or lips because corn(y) syrup makes me cringe

me DOES love talking about me

to ALL other points (which talk about YOU i.e.
meh :P )

Me said...

First you make people miss u... and then you come back like THIS :)

hehe...

That is an interesting observation abt TAGS... I never thought much in that direction... and am too lazy to do tags.. :D :D

ekta khetan said...

Hmmm Hmmmm...I am happy to hear that you will be more regularrrrrr...Trust me you cannot get better than this and if you did, that would be double whammy!!
That's your fan talking1

Interesting way to respond to a tag!!!

ekta khetan said...

@ shanu

Do not worry... I will tag you soon:)

Anonymous said...

I am not saying anything because I like tags, it helps me get over my writer's block and post something on the blog. So =[

Preeti Shenoy said...

where are the promised 5 paise, 10 paise worths?
Write write and make no excuses.
Cheers
preeti

BrownPhantom said...

@Delphian Oracle,
Yes, I am just being my wierd self :). Good to see you after a long time :)

Preeti,
There's a post now which is worht 2paisa :)

@Ekta,
Thank you so much for the kindest of words :)

BrownPhantom said...

@Meghana,
So you did the tag in the comments section itself :). Done pretty well indeed. Waiting for your next post.


@Ria,
Yes, you are :).Thanks :)

@Harshita,
Being lazy leads to intelligent choices many times :). Thank you so much.

nintendo r4 said...

I do agree that the tags and the questions in them are mostly girlish!!
I equally loathe tags and for almost the same reasons as you!!