The online war of the words between the different personal blogs of the sosyal, pa-sosyal, feeling sosyal and di talaga sosyal has negated my need to read the entertainment sections of the regular dailies. Unless of course I’m looking for articles that give official-ness to the online word war, which only the Inquirer publishes but not the Philippine Star.

Reading online is much more entertaining. Everything is raw, unedited, unscreened by editors (If they do screen it, that is. In this country, one never knows.). The online entries don’t only give you a peek of a person’s mental process (if any) but also shows you how much work they need to do on their communication skills.

Writing has a way of laying everything out there, without the protection of the slang accent that would otherwise make grammatically appalling English sound like a hypnotic pop song. You know it’s not right to like, say Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” but you find the catchy beat drawing your attention away from the actual message and you catch yourself humming the song, much to your chagrin.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who knows? Who cares! Write on! (That’s two exclamation marks right there.)

In a way, having a free avenue to write and air out your side has leveled the playing field. No more need for publicists, transactions with media connections, and so forth to get your face on the newspaper or magazine. If you have a side to air, write on your blog. The media will come to you and quote you.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against mainstream media (most of the time). I still read them a lot, especially the reputable ones. But one has to admit that the lifestyle pages have been wanting. The writers are the same writers from ages ago. The features are the same features.

And most of the time, advertorials are made to appear like legitimate features. Again, nothing wrong with advertorials. I understand that they are essential to business survival. But give readers credit, they know one when they read one so instead of passing it off as a legitimate feature which adheres to journalistic principles, then maybe they can clearly be marked as advertorials. If I’m interested in the product, I’d read them anyway.

So here’s to variety. And witty blog writers. And upholding the one and only “truth.”