The Marmot’s Hole

Shawn over at Korea Life Blog (KLB) might be hanging it up for good. Personally, I’m hoping this represent nothing more than a temporary case of blogger angst — something we all get — because Shawn’s contributions to the blogosphere would be truly missed should his decision be a permanent one. KLB served as the inspiration for many expat bloggers in Korea (Joseph, however, would be horrified to know that Infidelworld was mine), and Shawn has consistently provided some of the finest descriptions and commentary about everyday expatriate life in Korea that you’ll find anywhere. In fact, I’ve always felt that people who really wanted to learn about life in this country should be reading KLB (and About Joel, to name just two) rather than this blog — as we focus mostly on news commentary (and a narrow slice of news, at that) here at the Hole, things naturally take on a decidedly negative tone, something that could give readers a rather skewed impression of the Republic of Korea, which is in most respects a fine nation that’s a wonderful place in which to live. Moreover, his blog looks just so damn cool — a well designed layout if there ever was one.

What is particularly unfortunate about Shawn’s decision, however, is that it may be in large part due to some of the asshats who have been polluting his comments section with personal attacks on him, his family, and his girlfriend:

However, these days checking my site has become more of a source of dread than happiness. I continually wonder if I’m going to discover a bunch of nasty remarks in the comments section. Surprisingly, with the number of people viewing day to day, it took a long time before this happened. I don’t think I had a single jerk for the first two years. However, over the past six months, it’s gotten out of hand. People who don’t know me continually put me down, put my friends down, and put my girlfriend down. This is something I can no longer ignore.

For awhile, I considered shutting down the comments all together, but what fun would that be? Reading comments and sharing thoughts is an integral part of the blogging process. Unfortunately, I now spend more time getting pissed off and deleting asinine comments from anonymous people and banning them than I do enjoying what others have to say.

I write honestly the way I feel about things, and I use my real name - much against the sound advice of people who know me. If I can’t be honest and have to be careful about what I write, well, in my opinion, that makes anyone’s writing stale and uninspiring, contrived, almost superficial.

Not that Shawn has asked for my advice (or even wants to read it), but if I might offer a word, it’s that there’s absolutely no reason to let trolls alter the way you write. Blogging has provided an interesting space for online discussion, but like any online forum, the anonymity it provides (which I generally consider a good thing) can be misused by some for reasons known only onto themselves. This is unfortunate, but it’s also a universal issue with which every blogger with an open comments section has to deal. Granted, trolls can at times hurt the discussions that take place on a website, but good commenters — the ones a blogger values most — know to ignore them and carry on with proper discourse.

Likewise, I fail to understand why a blogger should change anything he or she writes on account of anonymous nasties that visit his or her comments section. There may or may not be legitimate reasons to alter the way one writes. I, for one, have been trying — with questionable success — to be more careful with what I write nowadays. That decision, however, was made a) out of respect for my regular readers who I felt deserved better; b) due to of my own desire to publish a better product; and c) because my discussions with those I’ve been fortunate enough to meet, dialog with fellow bloggers, and research I’ve been doing regularly since starting this blog have thoroughly convinced me that I know next to nothing about Korea (a conviction that is reinforced daily), and some of my earlier material was probably wildly inappropriate. Concern that anonymous trolls might say nasty things in my comments section, however, has generally not been a factor in what has gotten posted here, nor should it have been.

Anyway, we all need blogging breaks, and a guy like Shawn who has given us such a wealth of good material over a remarkably long time could probably use one. To call it quits, however, would be a real shame for KLB fans like me if the resolution were prompted by comment section nasties. Korea is a place where you learn something new — and usually fascinating — everyday, providing a never-ending supply of good blog material. I don’t presume to know what’s in Shawn’s mind, but as a fellow blogger, I have to believe he’s got a lot of quality blogging left in him, and I can only hope he reconsiders his decision.