“Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but…”

The Internet is packed with blogs. Those blogs are as diverse and varied as Lindsay Lohan is untalented and overrated. Like beauty, a “good blog” is in the eye of the beholder. However, whether or not a blog is successful depends entirely on whether or not it meets the intended purpose of its owner.

For example, a blog dedicated to the career of Jaleel “Steve Urkel” White will probably not interest 99% of us. Of course, it’s not meant to interest most of us. Even if it’s the greatest Steve Urkel blog on the Internet, it’s unlikely to be anything more than a morbid curiosity you look at for five minutes while you are waiting for your friend to hurry up and get on AOL Instant Messenger.

Does that make it a bad blog, though?

Are the in-depth stories about the Urkel-Bot, Stefan Urquelle and The Urkel Dance badly written simply because you don’t care about those things? Is the blog a failure simply because you aren’t a fan of what it’s about?

“Where is Kev going with this,” you’re probably asking yourself.

“Why is he talking about blogs and Urkel? Is he about to start an Urkel blog??”

A very good friend of mine had her blog recently critiqued by a site that fancies itself worthy of reviewing other people’s blogs. Actually, “critiqued” is putting it too kindly. They ripped her a new one.

They didn’t like the fact she occasionally blogs about God. They didn’t like her political views. Therefore, they didn’t like her, her blog, or the horse they rode in on. And they didn’t express their dislike in any meaningful, constructive way. No, they instead expressed their thoughts with sarcasm, hatred and vile disguised as constructive criticism.

Look, unless you are part of its intended audience, most people are as qualified to critique the quality of a person’s blog as a vegan is qualified to critique the quality of a porterhouse steak. The only possible exceptions are those rare individuals who are ridiculously open-minded and unbiased.

Still, do a Google search. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of blogs out there designed primarily to critique other blogs. A majority of these blogs are owned by individuals who are neither open-minded nor unbiased. That isn’t to say all of these reviewers aren’t good at what they do. A few of them aren’t too shabby. But many are bad, and some — like the one who critiqued my friend — are cruel and condescending.

The beauty of blogging is we’re allowed to make our blogs whatever we want. There are moms out there who like to blog about their children. There are sports fans who like to blog about their favorite teams. Some people blog about politics. Rumor has it I like to blog about things that are funny.

And yes, that means people also have the right to use their blogs to critique other blogs. But that doesn’t mean they’re qualified to do so.

Heck, if reviewing other blogs is the hip thing to do and no qualifications are necessary, maybe I should jump on board? After all, I’m hip. I’m cool. I’m with it. I can get bajididy with it, or whatever it is the kids say.

That settles it: Next week, I will review my friend’s blog. She deserves a nice review.

Who knows, maybe the fact I have a degree and job in web development will enable me to — oh, I don’t know — have a clue what a blog review should look like.

And heck, if I get stumped, I’ll just do what the cool reviewers do: I’ll throw out random insults that have nothing to do with anything.

“…of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.”
- Dennis Miller, cerebral comedian extraordinaire