racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Here’s a compelling reason why celebrities–entertainers, politicians, and other well-known individuals–should start their own blogs.

About three years back, I was checking out the ‘Net for information on Marieton Pacheco. She was then an up-and-coming media personality, having covered the Malacañang (the Philippine equivalent of the White House) beat as a rookie TV reporter, then the Erap Estrada impeachment trial, and then moving on to host a youth-oriented morning show. What’s interesting is that instead of her studio profiles and company links appearing on the search engines, there was this one blog that was consistenty on top. And if I were Ms. Pacheco, I might not like the contents of the blog much.

While the author of the Elephant Still Missing blog has long stopped updating the site, his fictional encounters with Marieton Pacheco still tops Google search. Let me quote a few lines.

Marieton Pacheco and I are neighbours in Kamias, and I bump into her occasionally in the most public places. The most recent one was in the Kamias Lavandera Ko branch, the one beside the video rental place in the Korean building. I was lugging my laundry in a large black plastic bag that people normally use for bringing-out garbage. My laundry’s at least two weeks old, and must’ve been six kilos heavy, possibly eight, even. The bag was heavy and too big for me to look over. I couldn’t see Marieton so I bumped into her and her basket of undies.

The laundry attendants were giggling like catholic schoolgirls when I dropped my bag and helped Marieton pick up her undies from the floor. Apparently, she just walked in before I did, about to hand her basket of undies to one of the attendants, when I bumped into her from nowhere and spilled her undies on the floor by accident. All this I figured from the unwashed-look that her undies had. They were still rolled-around and curled-up along the sides, like she had just used them four hours ago, still looking like they did the last time she tossed them into the basket.

Is It For Real?

When I first read the article, I thought this was a real-world encounter. But then upon further reading (and judging from the nature of the site), I realized it was a literary site. In fact, it was part 2 of the author’s account, where he claimed to be Ms. Pacheco’s boyfriend, that made me start to look twice into the nature of the site.

Marieton Pacheco and I are on an air-conditioned bus to Novaliches, to meet her parents who financed her way through four years in MassComm. It is a sunny Saturday afternoon outside the window, the sort that invites bearded street preachers to bring the Word of the Lord into air-conditioned bus aisles. Our bus is parked near where People’s Park used to be. Marieton is holding my hand, and I hers. Her grip is firm, like a little girl holding her brother’s hand as they make their way inside a Star City funhouse. I’m contemplating about tickling the inside of her palm with my middle-finger when she asks me about my relationship with my father. “Are the two of you close?” she asks me. She waits for my answer with a pout.

Readers who are not as inquisitive, though, might not realize this.

Search Engine Benefits and Being Part of the Discussion

So why should celebrities blog? Simple. Search engine optimization. If I were a respectable young lady who is a media personality, I would certainly not want for-mature-audiences-only stories involving me to be topping search engine results (though I think the Marieton Pacheco stories are well-written and still in good taste, except probably if readers have very playful minds)–more especially so if these were true stories. If I were an incumbent politician looking into re-election, I wouldn’t want claims of my being corrupt being spread online and making it to the number one spots in the search engines.

Or worse, some individual with malicious intent could just set up a blog under another’s name (even signing up for an appropriate domain name) pretending to be that person, but writing material that’s potentially harmful.

The same goes for just about any person who wants to maintain his or her integrity online. While you cannot control what material about you gets published online, you can at least show the people who you really are and what you really think by writing your own blog. And if ever people publish stuff about you that you don’t like, you can always comment on their sites/blogs, and you can always publish your response on your own blog.

This is why big companies like Microsoft and IBM have let their employees blog. Blogs give a sense of honesty and transparency. Readers would rather read accounts and opinions from a real person rather than a press release, which while well thought-of, would not feel as honest.

So why should celebrities blog? To protect their identities online, that’s why.

Oh, and it can be quite fun, too.