Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I know who you bloggers are

My blogging has come in stages. I first started out some 3 years ago, but blogged very sporadically. Then I decided to become more "serious" aka post more often about a year ago. And about half a year ago I became increasingly interested in reading other peoples blogs. The reason I didn't before was simply because I didn't know there were so many wow-blogs out there. I knew there were plenty, but this many! Unfortunately when I started seeking blogs out I noticed many had already quit writing. Many of the blogs listed on Wow.joystiq.com, where I started out my quest to find nice blogs to read, were inactive since months and some even didn't exist anylonger. Made me sad panda. But I eventually did find a bunch of nice blogs to read and my list keeps growing each day. I only actually have one requirement to be interested in a blog - update it fairly regularly. And also I'm not very interested in blogs that mainly repeat what sites like wow.com or mmochamp say without any own contemplation in the matter. But that is another point. Because another thing I noticed when looking for blogs was that most wow-bloggers (I've come across so far) had a tendency to fall into one or more of three very special categories of players. A certain group of people simply seem to be over-represented. It could just be me of course, and this post is in no way aiming at being scientifically or statistically accurate. Merely an observation I found could be interesting and hopefully entertaining to share.

Here is my list of the three factors that will turn you into a blogger, or the other way around, the three types of bloggers that are the most common.

You're a Healer
Hey that's me! I don't know why really but it really seems like most active bloggers out there are playing some sort of healing class. And I don't mean just overall (everyone has a healer tucked up somewhere. No, not there...), but as a main. My blog is one example of this of course, but there are tons of other examples. Maybe because healing is such a fun and interesting thing to write about? Maybe because with healing you don't have to know much about rotation or min/maxing to be fairly decent, which entices the average player to write about their experiences. Maybe people who play dps classes feel like if they want their blog to be interesting it has to be a bunch of datas and theorycrafting, and maybe healing is more about musings? And tanks... well although there are a bunch of tank blogs out there I think they're low in number simply because not that many people play tanks. But everyone plays a little healer now and then?

You're a Druid
I'm not overly interested in the druid class, in fact it is one of those classes I am the least interested in. I think this is simply due to the fact that it is the class that Love is the most interested in and because of this I get my daily dose of druid information and updates whether I like it or not. So I have definitely not sought druid blogs out (but I still follow some), and it still seems like every other blog I come across writes about druids. Looking at a site like wowheadlines.com we can see that the druid feed is without competition the most active feed, followed by the priest feed. I'm not sure what it says, but it says something. I'm interpreting it as druid bloggers being either very many, very active or both. I'm thinking the third alternative. Following the above rule, most druids blogs are written by resto druids. And this seems to be true! Second to resto druids are the feral druid blogs, which mostly seem to focus on tanking for some reason. And last but not least the occasionaly and sporadic boomkin blogger. The fact that resto druid blogs are so -extremely- common, I seriously feel like there is one resto druid blog to every other blog out there, has put some me to some thought. Why this need to express yourself when you're playing a resto druid? Is there something about resto druid healing that makes it especially interesting to theorize and muse about? Or do people who like to blog enjoy the resto druid role for some other, unknown, reason? I don't know!

You're a Girl
This is a tough one because most of the time one can't really tell the sex of the blogger. It does shine through at times, whenever a blogger writes about themselves they might mention their sex in passing by, but otherwise it is guess work. And yet I have the feeling that most bloggers out there are girls. One way to make the assumption is by the pen-name of the blogger of course. And I belong to them people who think I can tell by the way people express themselves, at least to some extent. I have no scientific data on this of course, but I think there is a difference in how women and men use the language. And using this quasi-science I have come to the conclusion that it definitely seems like there are more female than male wow-bloggers out there. Also I feel like the active bloggers are more women than men but that the really popular blogs are written by men. Just look at Just My Two Coppers or Big Bear Butt (Which seems to be featured on wow.com Daily Quest column everytime ^^). Skeleton Jack is another blogger who seems extremely popular. Honor's Code. Matticus. Big Red Kitty. I could go on. Many have quit writing but still, where are the really big female bloggers? Fortunately there seem to be some at least, like Pink Pigtail Inn and Dreambound.

The Conclusion
Putting all this together it seems like most WoW-blogs out there must, according to my observations, be the resto druid blog written by a girl. So tell me, am I right or am I right? Why this would be, I can only speculate of course.

Just for funsies (yay, funsies!) I went and tried to figure out what all the blogs in my reader could be. Now most of the time I am only guessing, and people do have a prevalence to unconsciously "find" proof to their own theories. I have tried not to do this, but be warned! In most cases I have read the "about" section of the blog to find out if they were a guy or a girl. What class they played usually was quite clear, but not in all cases. Some blogs were also written by several authors. When people write they have a "wife" in their "about" section, I have counted them as male (and vice versa), but strictly speaking that doesn't have to be so! I've removed the blogs where I couldn't clearly find out which class they played or if the blog was about something else than WoW (yeah I read about other stuff too!). So here it goes;

Tanks
Prot Warrior: Girls - 1; Guys - 4; Unknown - 1 (Total - 5)
Total tanks - 5

DPS
Warlock: Girls - 4; Guys - 2 (Total - 6)
Shadow Priest: Girls - 3 (Total - 3)
Rogue: Guys - 2 (Total - 2)
Hunter: Girls - 1; Guys - 4 (Total 5)
Mage: Guys - 1 (Total 1)
Total dps - 17

Healers
Priest: Girls - 6; Guys - 4; Unknown - 1 (Total - 11)
Druid: Girls - 6; Unknown - 1 (Total - 7)
Paladin: Girls - 2; Guys - 2 (Total - 2)
Shaman: Girls - 1; Guys - 1; Unknown - 2 (Total 4)
Total healers - 23

Blogs I would love to read, if I just could frickin find any! (Tips very welcome)
  • Enhancement Shaman
  • Arms/Fury Warrior
  • Melee Hunter (just kidding)
  • Protection Paladin
  • Balance Druid

I've given some thoughts already to why healing would be an easier subject to blog about than tanking and dpsing. Why I subscribe mostly to priest healing blogs might not be so odd, but they are, together with resto druid blogs, very very common. I have no idea though why druid-players specifically would be more prevalent (and I don't mean by just a little, but by alot) than blogs about other classes. There are loads of resto druid blogs that I don't follow and that therefore don't show up in this list. I've been trying to avoid resto druids remember? And still they're second on my list. I know that druids is one of the most commonly played classes, and that contributes of course. One could ask why that is too. Are druids and priests or healers more often played by people who also like to express themselves? Do girls like the blogging medium more than guys? Are guys more interesting than girls since they seem to attract more readers? Oh so many questions and so little answers. I'll leave it at that, and maybe you can help me out with this tough cookie.

Are your experiences of the WoW-blog comminuti somewhat similar or completely different?

11 comments:

  1. I've often considered this very topic and I think your 3 factors are right on, haha. The amount of female druid bloggers is staggering - I can think of at least 5-6 off the top of my head, all of whom are extremely knowledgeable about their chosen class.

    Druids aside though, sometimes I flip through the blogs I follow and realize on my 7th or 8th blog in a row that they've all been female authors.

    Ultimately though, I have no more clue as to why these patterns are what they are than you do!

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  2. I'm surprised you missed Restokin, by Lissanna. She has written a lot of Resto stuff lately, but she also writes about Moonkin and Balance spec issues. I would also consider her to be extremely well known....more so than Kae, though I adore Dreambound.

    Gray Matter is also a good Balance Druid blog. For a third Balance blog try Qieth's Quips.

    And because you are counting, those last two Balance Druid blogs are written by men.

    I admit, I play a Druid (a Resto Druid at that), so I actively seek out Druid blogs to read. ^^*

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  3. You need bloggers? I've got bloggers.

    Enhancement Shaman? Done and done.
    http://www.myrddin.de/
    http://enhancementshaman.blogspot.com/

    Non-Prot Warriors? Err...yeah, I'm still looking.

    Protection Paladin? Done.
    http://rhida.ch/

    Balance Druid? Done, done, and done.
    http://qieths-quips.com/
    http://redhawksgaze.blogspot.com/
    http://www.restokin.com/

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  4. @Anon
    I haven't missed Lissannas blog in fact! But I didn't name all the druid blogs I know of, that would take ages ;)

    @Psynister
    Thanks alos, loads of blogs I didn't know of yet (I should ask for blog tips more often)! I am reading Myrddins, but unfortunately he doesn't update very often. Most recent post over a month ago :/ But the other ones are new to me (except restokin) so thanks!

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  5. I have spent some serious thinking time to why I seem to only attract female readers (or so it seems)... if it was the way I wrote, my design, my topics, but it might be a case of a disproportioned female blogger base compaired to the amount of female players.

    I personally don't read class blogs, and will avoid them mostly.

    The only reason I'm reading your blog, is that I found out you write about all kinds of things, not just healy stuff.
    I've been by your blog several times before I even knew this, cause you make sure to hide your Musings very well ;)

    In fact, the first two times I came by, I glanced at your top bar and thought "outside of target group" and left, but I eventually found posts that interested me under your tags, but only due to one such post being on the front page.
    (Maybe you're missing out on potential readers - maybe I'm the only such reader, haha)

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  6. As a girl who plays a resto druid and has recently began my own WoW blog (which i consider general content and not race or class specific), I am extremely interested in this discovery. I already knew that my reader was filled with mostly resto druid blogs written by females, but I assumed that was because that's where my main interest lies. You've got me really curious and I wish there were a way to actually study the reasons a bit more. Off the top of my head I would assume it could probably be linked to what kind of people we are in real life. I think it's probably not because resto druids decide to be bloggers but because the same thing that draws them to blogging also draws them to resto druids. Maybe it's the flexibility of the class? With the different shapes and tanking, dpsing, healing options? Healing being the most prevelant could be because a woman is generally more nurturing than men? I'm just thinking out loud here, not trying to offend anyone or pretend I know what I'm talking about. But there is bound to be a common personality trait or two that draws people to be resto druids who also blog. If you gathered us all up and interviewed us I'm sure we'd all be generally alike in several ways.

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  7. I play a hunter, write a blog about it and I'm male. Sorry to break your streak. :)

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  8. Haha, I must be the lone prot warrior girl on your list. :)

    There's a dearth of warrior blogs, especially in the non-tank category. Friday McFay is still posting about Arms, sporadically, as is Herc the Merc for Fury.

    Best prot paladin blog I know is Rhidach posting over at Righteous Defense, http://rhida.ch
    He's a guy, but has occasional guest posts from Anafielle, a female prot paladin.

    Tossing my hat in the ring for Lissana from Restokin as well, she's pretty amazing and very active in the druid community.

    Me, I am mostly looking for tanking blogs in particular, and then mostly shaman healing, with a bit of druid and priest. I also know that the really big name blogs out there are just about all from guys who seem to have a more aggressive strategy in drawing in readers. That some of them are also writers or former writers for WoW Insider helps of course.

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  9. @Ironyca
    Yeah I often do that myself when I check out a new blog - let the post currently up be the "advertisement" for the blog in general and if I don't like it within 5 seconds I leave it. I should really get better at that, but I think that is how many people out there do it (just like they judge people by looking at them?) and maybe not much one can do about it :S

    @Elfindale
    It's a really interesting subject and if you want to read a little more on it I suggest you check out Ironycas (commenter above) blog. She currently has a series on Gender-Bending in WoW based on a study she made and it is thrilling! A little different branch of this subject, but definitely within the "how do guys and girls gaming differ and why?" area.

    @Gav
    Damn you! *Shake fist* I will say as Cicero - "The exception proves the rule" ;) I just learned what that idiom really is supposed to mean btw... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exception_that_proves_the_rule

    @Kadomi
    Yeah, continuing on the "just throwing my thoughts out there" that we've got going here I'm gonna speculate and say that it could be because girls and guys write about slightly different things and in slightly different ways. Eventhough there might be very many female bloggers, I still think the reader base is mainly men and they will be drawn to what interests them, which probably will be what other men (and male bloggers) are interested in. So if female bloggers mainly attract female readers and male bloggers mainly attract male bloggers (and probably alot of female too) that could explain alot. But like I said, I'm just speculating...

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  10. My husband and I blog together - our mains are druids and mine is resto so yeah. There you go. I've noticed that all bloggers are female trees, too. For a while I thought it was just because I'm a resto druid so of course I read those blogs, but then I realized we just have three times more of them than anything else.

    It's interesting but I doubt it means anything. Just a curious coincidence.

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  11. That's a lot of questions. :)

    I've noticed before that the blogosphere is a) very healer heavy and b) quite the women's club. but then I can also easily name many WoW blogs (great ones too) written by male players. so I'm not sure how big the difference in reality is and whether blogging in general might also be somewhat more popular with women, because women culturally write more in private too (especially in diary form which is not totally unlike many blogs).

    I'm careful by default to make too many assumptions about something based on sex however. I also usually don't notice unless the author starts referring to himself as 'she/her' or 'his/him' - it's just so utterly unimportant.

    I count at least 12 very popular WoW blogs by women in my reader, and thats only from the top of my head. :)
    obviously our view of the wow 'blogosphere' is always very restricted by what we've discovered ourselves so far (y'know, who else is out there??).

    Or maybe you simply notice men being great at something more than you notice women, especially if it's in an area they're slightly under-respresented? would be an interesting topic for the mental shaman (who is a great female blogger too and by now writing for wow insider). ;)

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