I have recently stated on my Facebook page that I might not be blogging any more:
I don’t feel like blogging anymore. It’s like, it’s not worth writing for anyone. I am not an activist and I don’t want anything to change. In this community, each gay is for himself; no one really cares about the others. All that everyone cares about is criticizing others who are doing things with their lives. And if someone is better than them or aspires to have a good life, jealousy eats them up, and they end up bashing that person until he/she starts hating himself.This whole community is worthless. I’d rather keep my thoughts for myself.
But I am forced to clarify a few things that I’ve been asked several times so far. I did not decide to stop blogging because I did not win at The Social Media Awards. On the contrary, I was humbled to be nominated by Fida Chaaban, and to have made it to the final stage in two categories was more than enough for me. I know that I cannot compete with the big names in my categories, and I wholeheartedly congratulate both Mich Cafe and Gino’s Blog on their wins, along with the other 31 winners. I believe that every single winner deserved to win. Were there other people who also deserved to win? Yes. But this is how life is, and it doesn’t mean that the others suck for not winning… Well, most of them don’t for that matter.
Which brings me to the purpose of this post.
The reason why I don’t feel like blogging anymore is that the blogging community in Lebanon is mostly shit. Let’s take a few examples shall we?
Elie Fares, from a Seperate State of Mind, thrives from nagging and bashing everything and everyone on his blog, while occasionally blogging about how he worships Taylor Swift. Then, he has the nerve to write a post about how Lebanon is a no criticism allowed zone while all he does is criticize nonconstructively.
Brofessional Review, on another side, a supposedly anonymous advertising and design critiquing blog is nothing close to professional. A bunch of bored students, with no real experience in their field, bash whatever and whoever they feel like under the umbrella of critiquing, while in reality, most of their posts are based on lies, exaggerations and personal attacks, all for the purpose of attention, like a baby cries for his mother. In the occasion that they do post something good, its for the same reason of being noticed for hopes of getting a job or if they are sleeping with (or hope to sleep with) a designer that they are reviewing (as suggested by one of the commentators on their blog).
Adam Fakhr Dean, a person who I had the most displeasure of meeting online, was eaten up by jealousy during the early stages of The Social Media Awards since he was heavily attacking the event and nominees and possibly sitting in his dark little dorm room in Italy creating memes about these people to fill the void in his life. The amount of hate that he demonstrated is remarkable. It is ironic that he has “Human Rights Advocate” in his twitter bio.
Not to mention people like Hady Fakhry, Nisrine and Nathalie who believe that the world revolves around their highness and will go out of their way to attract people’s attentions with useless content and gossip.
The Lebanese social media scene is full of these negative un-constructive people who try to bring people down at the expense of their boredom or attention-seeking behavior. Then, there are the fake activists (who are also seeking attention, from the online community and the media), who fill our timelines with lies, deception and manipulations to get what they want. They lie about getting arrested, they lie about their goals, they lie about what they are doing. All of this to be in the spotlight. Feminism? Ha! Gay rights? HA! Political Reform? Double HA!
I am not an activist, and I don’t want to be. I am not a blogger, if this is how the blogging scene in Lebanon is.
Raja Farah said on twitter that people are quitting from blogging because of the competition that was created by The Social Media Awards (he is still bashing the SMAs, probably because no one nominated him and he didn’t have the courtesy to nominate himself). As much as I respect Mr. Farah and I think his blog and writing style is creative and daring, I have to disagree with him completely. People are quitting blogging because the social media community in Lebanon is not supportive. It is very stressful to continue in such a state where everyone is out to get you and you are not good enough for anyone (especially those who are lifeless and worthless).
The whole purpose of the awards was to shed the light on the people who are doing remarkable effort on social media. But it unexpectedly showed more than that. It showed how rotten the Lebanese online community is, how jealousy eats everyone, how they cannot handle other people’s success, how hate circulates among the tweeps and bloggers, and how everyone is selfish and cannot be happy for others. These awards were supposed to unite the community and show a good image to the media. It turns out that the Lebanese online community does not want to be united. It’s the same as the rest of Lebanon: discrimination, sectarianism and hate. Nothing will ever change.
I do not blog because I want to get followers or get exposure. I blog because I want to get my message across. It might not such a strong message either. I talk about my experience being a gay guy in Beirut. I am not an activist or political reformist. I used to write to express my identity and thoughts to people who might be interested to read, or to tell gay guys in Beirut that they are not alone.
After the truth that has been uncovered these few months, I feel that it is not worth investing my time in this blog; it is not worth exposing my thoughts, fears and hopes with such a hating community.
So, I’m going to be taking a break for now, until things change or until I really want to express my thoughts about something. I will still be active on Twitter and Facebook though, so I will not be disappearing completely.
Until we e-meet again my readers…
Alloush
