Blogs: From elections to nose jobs.

Have you ever stayed up late and watched those silly infomercials? There is this single exercise machine which can target and part of your body, and there is the Magic Bullet that can make you anything from a frozen Margarita to an omelet, not forgetting the inspirational DVD box set that can make you a million dollars or just make you feel richer in spirit.

Well these are what blogs are to me, multi functional, informative, can be used positively and negatively, can benefit both blogger and reader, and the list goes on. Today you can find blogs from various sectors, from sex blogs to political blogs. This new age online diary has taken the world by storm, what happen to the days when the diary was a secret book of your thought that you would hide under your pillow? Everyone and anyone have the supremacy to read your blog. If it was personal, then why publish it?

Has our virtual world evolved into a parallel universe of thoughts? Well I can only make sense that the users of the internet are beginning to break free of the chains of constrain, especially in those political blogs, where privacy is not an issue. They can’t say it in newspapers, radio or on television, therefore it’s the internet to the rescue!

In Malaysia many ‘out-spoken’ bloggers found their way into the saying everything and anything they want to say in their blogs. The consequences: they are caught and prosecuted by the government. One of the Malaysian political blogger, Jeff Ooi even ran for the recent election. However, our Prime Minister made a comment on bloggers, unfortunately not very positive ones, especially to those left-wingers…

Here are some articles that might be interesting..
In Malaysia, Bloggers become Politicians
Malaysian Political Bloggers form Alliance

On the other hand, there are bloggers such as the likes of Kenny Sia, escape these sort of ‘prosecutions’ by being commercial and actually having quite a wide fan base. Not bad for a Chinese guy who spend a good chunk of his life in Australia and started his blog when he had to go back to Malaysia due to family problems ( I know that because my girlfriend is one of his ‘fans’). And now, he writes a column for a Malaysian magazine and is also the host of Dream Girls, Malaysia’s version of America’s Next Top Model and plays the part of Simon in American Idol.

Another example is XiaXue, a Singaporean blogger who is one of the top bloggers in the world. She is as controversial as an Asian female blogger can get. Being politically incorrect and pink fluffed, she made many entries about how ugly people are, penis sizes and about her nose job.

So, do bloggers really have the freedom of speech? Does our IP address or our nationality determine what we can say or what we cannot say? But what I can say is, we can be politically incorrect and be absolutely charming and we have the big bucks rolling in… and that my friends, will be my next entry…