German anime blogs are baaaaaaad

More news at six.



Hooray for even more lazy filler output. Don't worry, I'll get to the super-deep posts some other time. Perhaps in a few weeks. Who knows.




Ah, yeah. Now this is a hot topic. Or not. Time for me to rant about German anime blogs! I kind of figured that with most people aware of little more than the English blogosphere, something that is big and deserves that term, I might actually want to write a bit about how things are with German anime blogs, since hey, I'm a German and used to blog in German and one or two of you might actually be interested in a local sphere. So, am I going to be in-depth and analytical about it? Heck no. That's not worth the effort and no one cares about something that's less of a "'sphere" rather than just a few separated blogs on the Internet anyway. Then again, a German anime blog. What is that even to begin with? There are several of those around but not only are you better off completely and utterly neglecting their existence, it also actually makes quite a bit of sense that contrary to what numbers might tell you, to say that there are only a few of them. German anime blogs have been driven to extinction. Not a great state. I hereby proclaim German anime blogs as a myth. Seriously, do German anime blogs actually exist? Let's split that term into its three components to gain some further insight on the matter:



German - Heh. Hah. Huh. Not sure if the third one can be counted as a laughing sound though. Anyway. I've already made it clear a few times on this blog that several Germans do not, in fact, have what it takes to properly handle German in a written form. This, naturally, applies to anime fans as well, hence why German anime forums have shitloads of people claiming they suffer from legasthenia. So, how are things with blogs? You'd think that with blogs, writers would understand the importance of the written text, polish their writing skills and better double-check their articles. Good luck with that though! The German on German anime blogs ranges from mediocre to downright abysmal with very, VERY few exceptions far inbetween. Wording, vocabulary, orthography, you name it, they fail at it. I'm fairly sure I had better writing skills than them when I was in seventh grade and no, I don't like 20-somethings writing like 12 years olds. So here's a tip for all of you, actually a useful one even: If you're an analphabet, don't start blogging. Just don't.



Anime - Oh boy. Oh boy. One would expect anime blogs to be about, well, anime. Not so with the German ones! Since, you know, "anime" is obviously a term that excludes anime altogether and instead focuses on (barely) anime-related stuff. Anime news maybe. Because if there's ANN, why not use them as a source material for your own blog posts? That's what journalism is all about after all. And let's not forget that that's still the high end of things. Certainly better than various editions of "I'M TRYING TO DRAW MANGA" (hello there, there's deviantArt for you talentless hacks and no, you are NOT art teachers), or, worse, "HOW TO BAKE JAPANESE COOKIES!" with a copypasted recipe for all the idiots who can't properly google that up themselves, or, worse, "HAVE PICTURES OF BEAUTIFUL SAKURA TREES!". Well, stuff like that. Anime blogs, yeah, right. Perhaps you should call those weeaboo culture blogs with infrequent bits and pieces on anime. There are also those who usually start out with writing on anime, then quickly burn out and decide to opt for the "comfortable" approach, the lazy way of doing things, ergo news posts and a few (or a lot) convention write-ups and the likes. Hey there. If you're too fed up with blogging and too lazy to come up with some creative thoughts and as a result, repost news instead, you might actually want to call it the quits for everyone's sake. Your blog has long since reached its expiration date and all you're doing is attempting to make a corpse dance by carrying it around. It's just not the same thing. Anime blogs should focus on anime. Nothing more and nothing less.



Blog - Just look at the kind of posts I've mentioned so far and you'll see how little German anime bloggers actually ever write their opinions or viewpoints down (or anything else of the sorts, for that matter). I completely fail to comprehend why those people create blogs in the first place. Not even once do they express themselves (and let's be honest, this is what all of this is about). They don't have anything to say. I'm not even being normative or elitist here. You'd think that on a blog, you'd find out on a blogger's stance on something. Not even once do they write down what they think. It's like that's forbidden, a crime or some shit, it's weird, really. Even your average editorial anime blogger and his absurd 5000 word posts on deep, intricate aspects in moe show X have something to say. Mostly bullshit, yes, but that's a failure of execution. At least they get the gist of it right. Can't say that for German bloggers. "So, uh, there's this blog of mine and, huh, better not ever write any of my thoughts down.". That has so little of what a blogger should do. No, not "Moe/Pantsu/AMV/Opening of the Week", not "There's a new convention taking place!", not "Have some cosplay pics I shot.". There are far better approaches to things. Take , for example. Little do I agree with that guy on most things. But. BUT. He actually expresses himself. There's so much personality and so many opinions to be found with his blog entries. See, the bitter, cynic alcoholic loathsome Finn (apparently a mysterious race hating anyone and everyone that also is devoid of ever achieving that which people refer to as happiness) whose libido has gone off the charts totally shines through. When reading his blog, you read him. You don't ever get that with most German anime blogs. He also does the things he does in a way that's entertaining to read. Compare that to German bloggers. These guys don't have a personality. These guys don't have anything that could make them or their blogs identifiable, make them stand out or give them a main claim to fame. "Just another waste of space on the World Wide Web" sums things up fairly accurately. Going by that train of thought, said writers and their blogs are basically separated. In their case, "writer" means "Typing in the stuff that's going to end up as a post" and that's where the link between those two ends. They are like robots ordered to write down the content. They don't express themselves, they execute content. And whenever they actually do end up expressing themselves, it mostly ends up like "Angle beats is a realy epik annemy bcaus I liek it". Or was it Madoka? And if things take a turn for the better and we end up reaching what I'd bitterly call the "apex", you're left with some "ARE MANGA ALWAYS BETTER THAN THEIR ANIME ADAPTATIONS?!?!?!?! YOU DECIDE!!!!" post. Thanks for your shallow and superficial train of thoughts that are so generic that they have already been expressed thousands of times on the Internet and require nothing other than a headline to know about what's written in your posts down a T. Boy, now I'm sure that's a blog I'd like to read!

You might as well take a look at tumblr's extremists as far as self-expressing is concerned. Just a tiny glance though. They are the other extreme. A bunch of people no one cares about apart from their pity party Internet kin joining in the sad-happy circlejerking, licking each other's wounds, consequently poisoning themselves even more. Don't become like them but at least realize that they got the basic idea right.



Adding insult to injury, most German bloggers don't know shit about anime. Sure, there are several of those too around the English 'sphere but at least not to a disastrous degree. Oh, and you better not hope for German bloggers to watch your shows unless you're into soulless light novel productions and the most recent KyoAni cutesy things. And as far as the level of nonsense is concerned, let's just say that "I bought the K-ON! manga. It was a bad read because for some reason, there are always four panels and it only consists of screenshots of the anime." is a sentence that exists. Yes, that was an actual statement, and no, I'm not making this up. No shit. The guy in question might as well have gone "guys I'm an anime expert,i knoe dat anime grouw on japnese trees or sumthing" for good measure, I wouldn't have taken that as any sort of cynism, snark, sarcasm, irony or humor. German bloggers wouldn't know how to apply standards (EWW, GUIDELINES, THAT'S, LIKE, DICTATORSHIP!) to get a little more professional (read: lacking in term of idiocy) with things even if you slapped them in their faces. They wouldn't even know how to properly write that word. WITH A T, RIGHT? I MEAN, IT HAS GOT TO BE A T! Yeah, I'm totally sure that word is about standing art or something. Because that makes perfect sense.



Seriously, German anime blogs are about as hideous as you'd expect from a bunch of people settling with less due to their lack of veritable English. Even most mascots on German anime blogs look like shit. If that disgusting stuff does not only exist but is also sheerly omnipresent on your website, consider yourself unfollowed from never having been followed in the first place. Once again, I am not fond of deviantArt abominations. Even less so if they are getting shoved down my throat. With all that said, you'd at least hope for things to get laughably bad, entertaining for all the wrong reasons but with news posts, cosplay pictures, convention summaries and the likes, there's not even that for you. Things only get hilarious on those blogs in case something really aggravated the writers, like anime fans getting belittled by the press, the common folks, you name it (dear German journalism: DEATH NOTE does not turn people into pedophiles). Now that is actually worth reading, since you couldn't possibly hope for more generalized butthurtness, paired with a dozen of logical fallacies dedicated to the masses. You know, those weird not-enlightened not-anime people. The Normie McNorms. Whatever those are up to anyway. Probably mistakenly worshipping soccer as the greatest thing in the world, drinking themselves into comas, taking drugs and killing people. BOOH! NOT-OTAKU CULTURE! DANGEROUS! I kid you not, I've come across several anime fans with that kind of attitude and perception when defending their hobby (because bashing other people is defending your favorite things, amirite). Bonus points if you blame the rap music. And Call of Duty, while adding how incredibly shallow that thing is and how it's obviously BAD for your mental growth unlike anime, a medium that has so many important things to say or something. Have you ever heard of JRPG-addicts causing school shootings? No? See, that's why anime people are better humans and why ANIME SOCIETY(tm) is an utopia. And yes, buying an expensive jp-domain for your blog will totally bring you closer to that.



Some people also start out with a really warped, misinformed motivation and are delusional enough to think that with their F-tier shitposts, they'd make it to a blogging superstar over night. Yeah, sure! And of course, blogging is next to no work at all! And so much fun! Because writing requires no effort at all! The world has been waiting in awe, gritting their teeth, just for YOU to start blogging and eat up all your content! Who's the man? YOU are the man! And for being the MAN, you are going to be sufficiently rewarded beyond your wildest dreams and imaginations with comments, fanfares and for shits and giggles, let's just throw in actual money too! Except that's not going to happen and sooner or later, you WILL come to exactly that realization. And by then, you'll stop blogging. You don't have fans. You don't have a cheering crowd. You have a bunch of posts no one ever comments on.



Face it, ladies and gentlemen: No one, I repeat, not a single soul on this planet cares about your shit unless you've already taken the appropriate measures, something you are way too incompetent to ever pull off or realize in the first place. You are not a super star. You are a dime in a dozen. Someone so unremarkable that you'll never get any of the recognition you're in for.



So in a way or two, that's not rewarding. Quite on the contrary, that's punishing. It's the very nature of blogging working against you and that's why you'll throw in the towel by week 3. Good riddance. Reality was just a tad too powerful for your delusions and ambitions. Although of course, there are also those who have long since reached levels of delusion that will prevent them from ever perceiving crushing reality and will just keep blogging. Those are like fucking machines or something. Machines producing something. Auto-pilot writing not even the authors themselves would like to read. Either that or blogging kind of turns into your abusive husband and will never let go of you.



I've also noticed that there's a disturbing lack of communication among some German bloggers (apart from twitter perhaps). Okay, okay, I get it. "Communication" isn't exactly the first thing that should come to mind when talking about blogs of all things, so let me explain: There are a bunch of German blogs you wouldn't ever possibly get to know about. Their writers have little idea that commenting on other blogs is what gets their blogs the amount of readers they hope for. Unless you somehow end up on one of those blogs via Google, you'd never get to know about them. Not much of a tragedy, sure, but you get my point. It doesn't help that with the German 'sphere, there's nothing akin to Anime Nano, ergo a website that keeps track of a whole lot of blogs, around. The only thing that comes to mind was a very short-lived forum for several kinds of blogs and little did we care about that. And since most German bloggers were too incompetent to get themselves some readers, they succumbed to twitter, a place that practically guarantees that you'll get followers with little to no effort and actually drives you to express yourself. So much more comfortable than blogging! Long story short: The German anime blogosphere died out as soon as Melonpan gave up on blogging and sooner or later, twitter killed off the rest. Think about what kind of a sad statement that is.



With all that said, things could be worse. I guess. Sometimes, though, it's really hard to see how.
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