The Singapore Blogosphere: Screwed Up?

Perhaps, and all thanks to its readers. Ever since advertising companies started to arrive in the shores of our local blogosphere, everything has changed. Some bloggers were intrigued by the idea of earning money just by sharing their thoughts online. Then, they began to learn how everything works and before you knew it, began posting articles about -you guessed it- sex, scandals and controversies.

No, it is unfair to put the blame on advertising companies. They will most willingly want to clinch a deal with top sponsors for high quality blogs discussing on topics such as technology, science and even politics. However, things work differently here in Singapore. The majority of the readers are hungry for more sexually explicit content, highly controversial articles and exaggerated artiste scandals.

The commercialization of the blogosphere has made bloggers themselves slaves to their readers. Readers are like consumers and bloggers are compelled to feed them with almost-junk content. The money-making equation is simple: the more readers or subscribers you have, the more moolah you are likely to bank in.

If there is one evidence needed to prove this problem, then it will be none other than our very own community meta blog for Singapore bloggers, known as Ping.sg. On average, almost half of the top ten most popular entries contain sex-related content with striking blog titles everyday. Again, you can't really blame Ping.sg for the overflow of sex-related blog posts. Ultimately, the people who decides which blogs get to the top ten spots are its readers.

I remembered asking a few of my not-so-Internet-savvy friends about the local blogosphere. And surprisingly, all of them uttered the same name, XiaXue. They went further and commented on how she represented our 'complain culture' pretty well. Somehow, XiaXue seems to be a representative of the entire local blogosphere. Unfortunately, all her constant ramblings and vulgarities that inundated her blog makes her bad one. Nonetheless, local readers still flock to read her blog as if it provides a new learning experience for them each day.

Now comes the difficult question: why are our readers more interested with sex, scandals and controversies?

Before answering the question, we must first acknowledge that sex, scandals and controversies sell everywhere and not just in Singapore. However, in other countries such as America, they are many highly reputable blogs writing articles on topics such as the science and technology. TechCrunch, Telegraph and Wired Science are some examples to name a few. The reason why these blogs are so successful is because they manage to garner a huge readership base.

By contrast, in Singapore, I believe most of our (intellectual) citizens are not connected to our local blogosphere well enough. Our small online market makes it even difficult for our local niche blogs to survive. In school, students are constantly reminded to be wary about information available in the Internet. They are encouraged to read print media, especially our very own The Straits Times. Reliability is often emphasized and in favour of print media.

The other root cause of the problem is none other than the nature of our education system itself. I don't think I need to elaborate further on how it works (basically its all about grades) but it definitely has a part to play to how and why most of our local netizens behave in a way they are now. Everything is provided for us and there is little need for us to research on the subjects tested. Little did they know that there are really good local niche blogs here in Singapore such as The Online Citizen and The Wise Curve. These local blogs need more support from netizens. They reflect well of how much our blogosphere has matured.

Hence, this has left our netizens with only two reasons to visit the Internet: to read on the latest sex news, scandals and controversies and to socialize with friends via games or social networking websites. It is as if they are habituated to the reasons stated above.

Nah, the Singapore blogosphere isn't exactly screwed up; its readers are...