Naked, not Nekkid

Lovebites here. This morning's blogger is definitely benefitting from the fact that I woke up next to the most delicious nekkid man ever this morning. Trust me when I say I am in a wickedly good mood. You know what they say in the south about nekkid, right? Naked is when you don't have any clothes on. Nekkid is when you don't have any clothes on, and you're up to no good.

Today, it's The Bell Pages on the hot seat here. And, that nekkid/naked dichotomy is going to be relevant to my review, so don't forget about it, aight?

Honeybell, our blogstress, has done her own blog design, and I like it. It's a bit narrow because of the third column devoted to ads and gadgets (hate, hate, hate), and my advice would be to get rid of the third column entirely. Given the blog's overall design, in fact, I'd probably do something like what Ryan has done on Slapdashittery. Only, with tabs on the top or bottom to lead to other spots on the blog, like her "about me" page. The two extra columns with all the crap on them are just distracting from the blog posts themselves, and that's bad. But the design overall is pleasant, and attractive. So, for what it's worth, there's that.

I like Honeybell, I think she's a talented graphics person for one thing. And, she's funny, too. But. And, this is a huge but...this blog is naked, but not nekkid.

She shows us snatches of skin, but very rarely does she actually get up to something. It's all calculated to titillate (ah! I said TIT!) without going very deep, at all. It's intended to please the reader, but it's a bit like those old commercials for hostess cupcakes where an animal thinks he's biting into a twinkie or something, and instead ends up with a mouthful of fiberboard or styrofoam. I mean, there is a half nekkid chick on the top of the blog, but Honey never really gets nekkid in her posts.

For instance...Let me throw some statistics at you. On the first page, we have:

-A link to someone else's podcast
-Good substantive amusing post
-The Jayhawks won (rock chalk, baby!)
-Book review that could be best summed up by the phrase "I got nuthin'"
-Homer Simpson photoshop

So, that's five posts. Only one of those five posts contains actual writing. The rest are what I like to refer to as styrofoam...they fill space to compensate for lack of creativity. Harsh words, right?

But I think what pisses me off about blogs like this is that I would actually like to see this person post less often, with BETTER POSTS. I don't read blogs like this. I hate fucking memes. I'd rather read the Drunken Housewife, who only posts 2 or 3 times a week, and has a fugly template from hell, but posts actual writing and content, than look at a blog with pictures of Homer Simpson. Or, someone photoshopped to look like Homer Simpson. Or a link to someone else's podcast. That interests me not at all.

Honeybell is what I like to refer to as a communal blogger, rather than an actual writer. She blogs to connect to other people, not to get nekkid with us. Oh, she'll show us her boobies here and there, but like those Catholic school girls in the 9th grade, she'll never, ever put out.

Compare any of Honey's posts to this amazing and heartbreaking post from Immoral Matriarch. See the difference?

The Matriarch shows us way below skin, she strips naked and lets us into her very soul. Honey? She's just a tease. I think all blog readers, secretly, are voyeurs. I know all four of us at Ask are voyeuristic as hell. We want to see what's under those clothes. We want to live inside your head. We want you to let us be inside you, being you, for a while. I think I speak for all of us when I say those are the kind of blogs we read. We like nekkid, not a strip tease. (Well, actually, a strip tease is fine as long as we get a happy ending, too). We want bloggers who put out.

So, my challenge to you, honey, is this: Get nekkid. Show us something real. Fucking PUT OUT, already. You're pretty and all, but can you write? Can you strip naked to the world and show us something that rocks us? Can you show us that you're more than a pretty face? Can you let us see behind the posing, and the makeup, and the pretty clothes to something so commonly human and intimate that we start to see the inner you?

No offense, sweetie. Naked just isn't good enough.

I give you for your nice design.

But, I give you:



for your content.

Of course, you can always resubmit. And, I'd encourage you to do so. I think you can write. You just don't, for some reason. And, that's what separates your blog from the really great ones we've reviewed here.