Wednesday 19 May 2010

Why so many?

Since coming to Buenos Aires I've had a lot of free time. OK, not just a lot, actually all my time is free time. I don't have to do anything at all and I do only what I choose to and when. It's an incredibly fortunate position to be in. One of the things I've been doing with some of that time is reading blogs, especially tango blogs.

Tango bloggers write on every imaginable topic. The tango-related posts generally fall into 2 main categories, which I think of as technical and observational. For some reason there are a lot of blogging tango dancers. By which I mean there are a large number, and (I believe) also a higher proportion of blogging tango dancers than blogging dancers of (many) other dance styles. I don't have statistics to support my assertion, and if I did then a sensible reader would take them with a pinch of salt anyway. Do your own research if you feel so inclined but to save you a few seconds here are some completely non-scientific search results from you-know-whoogle -



Obviously the number of hits on a search phrase including a dance style and the word blog is not the number of actual blogs about that dance style. However I think we can infer something from the relative numbers of hits and the relative numbers of dancers of each dance style.
 
I've been wondering what it is about tango dancers that seems to predispose them to blogging. Maybe they're we're (after all, I am one too) creative people. Well hang on, so are dancers of other styles. Maybe we're passionate. What, and other dancers aren't? Maybe we're egotistical? What, and other dancers aren't? Maybe we're more of those things? Could it be that we're just a caring, sharing bunch of people? Perhaps there aren't really (proportionally or absolutely) more tango dancers' blogs, it just seems like it because those are the ones I like to read.

I really don't know. There was one search I tried which produced a (considerably) larger number of hits than "tango blog" -

Ugh! Shudder!

There are links to some of those tango blogs in a panel on the right hand side of this page. Those are the ones I read often. There are many others I read occasionally. I may add a page containing links to them all (because the web really needs that redundancy!) at some point.

My reasons for blogging are given in my first post. If you're one of my friends who suggested I start this blog then I encourage you to go on a link-hopping expedition. Don't be surprised if you spend a big chunk of time in the process.

Back to my assertion. What do you think? Are there really "more" tango bloggers, and if so, why?
Posted by Mark at 20:38

4 comments:

  1. jamesy20 May 2010 at 10:57

    Hi Mark
    I posted a comment to this earlier but it seemed to disappear so here is some of it again
    Hi Mark
    Nothing wrong with reading blogs about Tango there is always some little gem that you can pick up that will help you on the journey. Have you tried ireneandmanyung.blogspot.com the writing is quite funny and the videos of some of the older Milingueros are goldust.
    To answer your question regarding Tango blogs I think more people write about Tango because the many facets of the dance and the history surrounding it is something that gets into them. Deep in them and they want to share there experiences with the world and more and more of the world is reading them. OR it’s a bloody hard dance to do well so at least they can talk about it
    Rgds Jim

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark20 May 2010 at 12:28

    Hi Jim,

    I thought it was just me suffering from comments dropping into a black hole. I've commented on 3 other blogs this week and they all disappeared without a trace. Thinking about it, they are all blogger/blogspot hosted. Maybe the oompah-loompahs are having problems.

    Thanks for your opinion. I pick up all sorts of tips or ideas from the technical posts and hours of enjoyment from the observational ones. I think of Irene and Man Yung as dreadfully serious tango dancers on a whole other level. The way they mix it up with the old milongueros and milongueras is awe-inspiring. I am Ronnie Corbett to their John Cleese in "I know my place". And the videos are excellent.

    Tango is hard, and does get under our skin and I'm enjoying sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous26 May 2010 at 21:27

    Hi Mark,
    If you visit Tangri-lá, you'll see a list of all (or most of) the tango blogs in the 'sphere.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark26 May 2010 at 22:23

    Hi Johanna,
    Yes, I think yours is the most comprehensive list I've seen. Now that I've added the feeds for a few more of my regular reads to my reader, I've also dragged them into my blogroll list.
    Still loving you kitten photos. They're seriously cute :-)

    ReplyDelete

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