Blogging can be an ugly game. Those times when blogs leap up and bite their authors are unpleasant to watch, but it’s fascinating to observe the power of the blog. Never underestimate it, and never take it for granted. Maybe you’re just in this game to make money blogging, but you should never forget that blogging goes beyond simple money-making techniques.

The fired teacher

My first example of when blogs bite happened a couple of months ago to a friend of mine, a Filipina girl, living in Bangkok. She was working as an English-language teacher and had just started working for a new school. She had also been keeping a blog for a while, and she wasn’t afraid to blog about her life, sex, her inner thoughts, and so on.

One post she wrote about her sexual exploits got picked up by a fellow teacher with a grudge. This guy forwarded the blog post to people in the teaching community and it made its way back to my friend’s boss, who promptly fired my friend by email, writing that he couldn’t risk her writing about her place of work. Although she hadn’t written a single thing about her school, she was still fired for some sort of “threat” that she posed.

Lesson learned: If you’re going to cover certain taboo subject areas and be in the public eye, there is a strong case for anonymity.

The relationship nightmare

Another friend of mine, this time a journalist working in Bangkok, wrote a very controversial post about prostitution in Thailand. The rant got picked up by the local expat community and turned into a 30-page post on a popular forum, with some very heated remarks directed toward my friend.

In the end, my friend’s boyfriend, who was briefly mentioned in the original post, started being mentioned in the forum. Suffice to say, they very nearly broke up because of it. The boyfriend couldn’t understand why my friend would blog personal aspects of her life. Although my friend’s level of traffic spiked by a multiple of five and her Adsense earnings shot through the roof, she eventually removed the original post because of problems it was causing in the real world.

Lesson learned: Be wary of how much personal information you reveal, and remember that even those close to you will never really “get” why you blog. Oh, and controversy creates traffic and more money online.

Breaking the rules

Not every blogger deserves our sympathies, however. A buddy of mine who runs a couple of magazines in Bangkok recently had to sack one of his employees for posting copyrighted material belonging to one of his magazines on her personal blog. Plagiarism is never a smart move and ultimately it will always lead to a fall. Remember when I caught someone borrowing other people’s content? The person in question admitted his wrongs, but it’s still a situation to avoid.

Lesson learned: don’t steal content from anybody.

A diplomat’s disgrace

This one made front pages around the world. Ian Proud, a diplomat working for the British Embassy in Bangkok, started writing a blog for a leading English-language newspaper. He put a picture of himself on his blog and within hours he was recognized as a frequent visitor to one of Bangkok’s most notorious red light districts. This led to a number of accusations and an eventual admission that he’d used prostitutes in the past.

Needless to say, the blog was pulled and Ian Proud’s name was mud around the world.

Lesson learned: there are certain occupations that just don’t gel with personal blogging. Think about what skeletons you have in your closet before you start writing your blog.

Boy in the spotlight

My final blogging nightmare happened to me about six months ago. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about foreign women in Thailand. Most people took it for what it was, but there was one woman who read it and took it completely the wrong way. She left me an essay of comment and promised that she would forward my article to every publication in the UK in a bid to ruin my career because she thought I was “sexist”.

All this was in spite of numerous foreign women in Thailand actually agreeing with what I’d written. I never heard from this woman again and I don’t know if she went through with her promise, but in the end, my loyal readership got behind me to call this woman out for her silly remarks.

Lesson learned: be careful of who you write about, because it only takes one unstable individual to make your life hell.

Have you ever had a blogging nightmare?

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