It’s voyeurism taken to a new level. Many people ‘blog-hop’ [go from 1 blog to another] to read about occurrences in the daily lives of complete strangers. Bloggers seem to encourage this by being so open with intimate details of their lives, yet some would baulk if their own parents read their blogs.
UrbanWire spoke to 2 such bloggers, Xiaxue and Kenny Sia, at the inaugural Singapore bloggers’ conference held at DXO. Read more about the conference here and more about Kenny Sia here.
Who is Xiaxue?
Xiaxue might appear catty and arrogant on her blog, but the petite, photogenic writer is pleasant and witty. Detractors may pass scathing remarks about Xiaxue, but it doesn’t take away the fact that many who attended Bloggers.SG 2005 came just to see her. Her blog’s daily hit count showed 11,400 hits by noon on July 17!
During breaks and after the conference, Xiaxue and Kenny were surrounded by fans asking for photographs. They patiently obliged each fan’s request. If they’d ever seemed unapproachable on their blogs, they weren’t in person.
Xiaxue and Blogging
Her real name is Wendy Cheng but she goes by the pseudonym Xiaxue on her blog. When she started blogging, the 21-year-old Singapore Polytechnic graduate never expected her award-winning (she won ‘Best Asian Weblog’, 2005 Weblog Awards) blog to become so famous. Xiaxue credits her success to the readers who’ve been supporting her all this while.
In fact, she doesn’t know what draws people to her blog. Perhaps it’s her honesty, perhaps they come for the gossip and according to her, to “kaypoh [the act of being a busybody in] other peoples’ lives.” She explains that “if you notice the writing from the start and now, you’d see that it’s kind of the same. I do not write for an audience.” Xiaxue also adds that she doesn’t feel any competition from other popular bloggers.
She started blogging 3 years ago when she found out that her ex-boyfriend’s girlfriend threw away a diary she wrote for him. She said “I was very upset, it was a normal paper diary and you can’t get it back. After that I told myself that I don’t want anyone to throw away my diary anymore.”
While some of the cattiness accounted for the appeal of her blog, Xiaxue admits regretting some of the things she’s written. She said, “[I regret] things that affect my friend’s privacy that I didn’t really consider and then I just put it online.” But she’s never felt any invasion of privacy with so many pair of eyes reading her blog every day. Xiaxue says, “I’m ok with it. I never had issues with privacy even when I was younger. I always tell my friends everything.”
Blogging has opened up many opportunities for her. On her blog entry dated July 9, Xiaxue believes that blogging can be a viable career option. She says it has landed her several jobs such as “endorsements, advertorials, freelance writing, photo-editing jobs, as well as sponsorships”. However, income earned from her blog is unstable and she declines to reveal how much she earns. She can and does use her blog for marketing purposes. Currently, she has an endorsement deal with Localbrand, a company which sells t-shirts with thought-provoking messages about Asian issues. On top of that, Xiaxue receives donations and birthday gifts from fans. She sees it as “a bonus out of something you like to do”
