I like certain kind of stereotypes. If I go to a bar and I do not get carded once in a while, it is awesome. However, sometimes, I even get asked to show my ID to be able to get a student discount or to be admitted to any rated-R movie in theatres, like The Last King of Scotland. I like to think it is because of the fact that I look young, though sometimes I wonder if it is because of the way I act.

Carrying on that tradition onto the online world, I would like to present to you 5 offline stereotypes that many are successfully bringing into the online world, ensuring that there is an abundant supply of stereotype to associate people with.

5 Offline Things To Stereotype Bloggers With

1. Importance is based on earnings

   Many people think that the richer a blogger is, the more important that blogger is supposed to be. The next time you run into a blogger and want to act discriminatory, or simply want to stereotype them, simply find out how much money they make, and worship them accordingly.

   This stereotype is the reason why you see so many immature and manipulative bloggers running around claiming authority, when all they have is an authority on the amount of money they make. Have money? Will worship.

2. Intelligence of others is based on their topics of interest

   Because of this stereotype, most personal bloggers and personal blogs are not taken seriously by many in the blogosphere. Sure, talking about overcooking the tuna may be interesting to someone, but you think such bloggers need sympathy and mental help. For you, the only normal bloggers may be the ones who talk about ways to make money, or they talk about topics which make them money, enabling you to use the first point above into your judgment too.

   This stereotype is one of the reasons personal bloggers are considered to be less knowledgeable, and also less important, than many other kinds of bloggers. This very stereotype may also blind you from the fact that personal bloggers shaped the origins and the beginning of the blogging trend. Instead of feeling lucky that you know bloggers and personal bloggers who have defined history for all future bloggers for generations to come, you simply think “A blog about daily life? This blogger has no life!“

3. Disagreements mean there are enemies

   This is one of the classics. If you see a blogger talking about something which disagrees with what you believe either directly or indirectly, you use the offline stereotype regarding disagreements and immediately start considering that blogger to be your life-long enemy. A blogger says Honda is the best but you think Ford is superior? You pray for that blogger’s doom. They eat 3 times a day but you prefer eating 5 times a day? You start attacking them directly and personally for not living their life the way you want them to live their life.

   Everyone can have their own understanding of the world, but this offline stereotype, which even prompts many people to find mirror copies of themselves to date, results in people feeling that the existence of any difference of opinion means we have to learn the art of fist fighting and we have to convert everyone else, by force, to our way of thinking.

4. Intelligence is measured by appearance

   For many people, a poorly designed blog means the blogger in question is stupid. This has something to do with our offline lives; if you see two business people, wearing the same suit and both appearing professional arrive in two different vehicles, one being a brand new car, and the other being a rusty old truck from 1950 with loud, annoying music on, which person would you be more inclined to do business with? Many people, if not most, will be inclined to choose the guy in the new car. Why? Because we care about appearances. You may think bloggers are stupid unless the nice design of a blog makes you want to smell your monitor to see if you can smell the freshness.

   While caring for appearances is important, we forget the fact that sometimes some people cannot fix certain things, or do not know how to. However, this offline stereotype of judging others based on their appearance to think that anyone who does not have a good looking blog is not a good blogger, cannot think logically, cannot writer, cannot communicate, and so on. Is that not sort of similar to what we do in the offline world, where if we are right about someone being careless enough to not take care of their appearance when they possibly can, we start questioning unrelated things about their character also, like loyalty, intelligence, and importance?

5. Ethnicity, gender, political and religious affiliations define a person for you, and not what the person actually does in life

   This can be the classic example for many people. The same way many people categorize and judge others in the offline world based on ethnic background, gender, political and religious affiliations, I am noticing many people judge bloggers based on their similar characteristics. You hate people from certain ethnicities and you run into a blogger from that ethnicity? No problem; you simply stereotype and tell the blogger “How dare you go online and start blogging? People of your type should be banned from blogging.”

   Sure, a blogger may themselves try to promote their ethnicity, gender, political or religious affiliation onto the reader, but you do not need to follow their example. It is better to judge people based on how they relate and value certain things, like religion, than to associate them with a certain religion and treat them the same way you supposedly want to treat everyone from that specific trait or religion.

There you have it. Those are the 5 stereotypical things that I think many people have successfully brought from their offline lives onto the online world. If you want to continue stereotyping in the online world, the above list can serve as a cheat sheet for you to refer to whenever you want to think of solid, proven methods to stereotype bloggers.

What is your opinion about this? Can you think of some other points that allow many of us to categorize and stereotype against bloggers?

Thank you for reading.