12 Awesome Blog Category Ideas And Others
Posted on March 10th, 2008 in Online Experience |
Blog categories, we hate them and love them. They’re the internet’s filing cabinets. But how can a few generic words sum up the deep, provocative, and earth-shattering thoughts that we humans are able to make materialize through hours of meditation and isolation with no companion but a dark, humming machine? On second thought, maybe Crystal is just high on chocolates. I for one tend to agonize over my blog categories and have no inspiration and/or is adamantly against creating new ones. So I surfed around on a few of my favourite blogs and found a few lovely ones to share. Credits all given, hopefully, probably, maybe.
Normality
The static categories are the *yawn* ones that appear everywhere. We can’t do without them, though depending on the theme of your blog, you might have different ones.
- PERSONAL - Your cat smells. Your brother is an ass. Your uncle’s new wife is half your age. You know where those blog entries go!
- WORK - The posts here? Your coworker smells. Your boss is an ass. Your young intern’s boyfriend is your uncle. Look at the parallel alliteration in that! On Ubiquitous I have both work and volunteer, once again affirming that yes, indeed, I am an awesometastic person.
- SCHOOL & UNIVERSITY - Definitely the most common one out there. Since so many of our lives revolve around schools, might as well make the most of it. Warning: posts tend to be caffeinated.
- FAMILY & FRIENDS - This category is for all the juicy offline dramas and scandals you don’t dare utter in your sleep, yet you post them on the Net
- ONLINE STUFF - Comic strips, Stumbled Across, E-Drama, Tech News, OMGZCOOLFACEBOOKAPPZ
- RESOURCES - Some of you actually climb out of your blogging caves and offer wonderful resources (photoshop brushes, textures, layouts, icons, codes, late-night services etc.) to your faithful readers. I have this on IB Years, but here, I like my cave of Plato.
- RANDOMNESS - Because being sane 24/7 takes up too much time and energy
- REVIEW - Nothing like constructive criticism to destroy inflated egos
- SITELY MATTERS - Sometimes layout changes are just really, really important (From Bitterer)
- UNCATEGORIZED - Oh god holy hell fire… I don’t have a single uncategorized post (I’m sure there are more of you out there with the same phobia) for fear of chaos and the apocalypse. Master! Must! Not! Return! To! Uncategorized Categories! Say that fast three times =D
Awesome Ones
Or somewhat awesome, you decide.
- WORDLESS WEDNESDAYS - A picture is worth a thousand worts, and a cliche is worth a thousand groans. Sometimes you just need to shutup and let the picture/multimedia do the talking. My Wordless Wednsdays are usually accompanied by text, trying to cure myself of that habit! (Example: Ubiquitous)
- QUOTABLES - A lovely way to post sporadically and bring a bit of humour in between long-winded entries (Example: Sex and the Ivy)
- QOTW - Stands for Question of the Week. Reader feedback, what a grand idea! How perfect for those occasions when you get writers’ block! (Example: Jingwen, Ubiquitous)
- LINK FARM - This category is for a conglomerate of links to unique sites that you stumbled across. This can be to external sites or internal posts (Example: Chiklita, Smitten Kitchen - YUMMINESS WARNING!)
- SMIDGENS & TIDBITS - AKA Tumblr meets blog. Gotta give Chanel lots of love for this smidgenicious name! (Example: CHNL)
- 101 THINGS IN 1001 DAYS - Or a category for any challenge for that matter. It keeps things organized and helps you keep track of your progress (Example: Scarlet Words)
- LETTERS TO THE STUPID - I was very tempted to make my own category after seeing this; the idea is just too brilliant. (Example: Babblative)
- DARKEST BEFORE DAWN - Another name for Rants, which by the looks of it is a popular category. Don’t overdo the metaphors though, or browsing through your categories will be a pain in the rear (Inspired by: Darkest Before Dawn)
- PANTS AWARDS - Now elevated to the level of infamy, what better way to congratulate the deserving? (Inspired by: Jemjabella, See also: Toilet Award at Infektia)
- HOW TO TICK ME OFF - A reincarnation of Letters to the Stupid perhaps? What will we have next? How to take over the world! (Example: Spoken For)
- LISTS ARE COOL- Like this one. See? (Example: Bitterer)
- LULZ - For the ROFLMAO stuff that are too cool for Smidgens & Tidbits (Example: ICANHASCHEEZBURGER)
Questionable
Aside from all the wonderful Smidgens and Tidbits out there, there are also some blog category names that make one go, “Errrr….?!” I have a short list below, feel free to add to it and/or give your two cent.
- WEATHER - No this wasn’t from TheWeatherNetwork. It was from a regular teenager blog. Bloody hell.
- PURE SITE UPDATES - Some people use their categories to say “today I added 2 blends, 3 glitters, changed the wording on the About page, added a fluffy jumpy thing on the bottom, and translated my site into Greek”. An entire post dedicated to this?! Yawn. I want to know about your life and/or your knowledge, not what you did with your site, though the last part about Greek might be interesting o_O
- TAGS AS CATEGORIES - Personally I’m against these. Things tend to get messy and people who want to get Resources might have to wade through several tags to get what they want
- OVERDOSE - See for yourself (Apprehended by: Internet Police) Word from the wise: if your category list on a blog post is longer than the entry itself, YOU’VE GOT PROBLEMS.
I’m sure there are more outrageous or splendid category names out there, care to share few?
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I'm Crystal, a Canadian who thinks she can take on the world simply by getting up each morning. They call me the caffeinated IBer wandering on the Internet. 
12 Responses
I’m pretty sure I saw “*SPAZZ*” somewhere before
I was actually thinking of creating a weather section, simply because I actually talk about the weather so much, both offline and (less commonly) online. Y’know how it is, coming from Vancouver - a day of pure sunshine or a month of straight rain and you’ll be going up to strangers and starting conversations with “OH MY GOSH HAVE YOU BEEN OUTSIDE TODAY?!”
… But I’d like to think that when I talk about the weather, it’s a lot more exciting than just “It was sunny today. Period.”
Thanks for the link, by the way!
Its funny you mentioned Tumblr… I actually started the smidgen and tidbits category based off of three things: 1) Dooce’s “nubbin” posts, 2) The craze of Tumblr, or how less is MOAR! and 3) my desire to post shorter entires. (As you can tell by this comment alone, it’s hard to fit anything I want to say into a couple sentences.) 
I have to admit, I’ve been awfully lax with my QOTW lately, and really have ignored it for the past two months or so. What a kick up the pants.
I’ve always liked Becky’s Letters To The Stupid as well, though unfortunately it’s been awhile since the last one!
If I had QOTWs on my IB blog, you would have to write an essay XD.
And #7 in the Normality…I’m totally insane 24/7, so I guess I should have a category called Boring to balance it out. LOL jk
Site updates. I’m very geeky with web-related things, especially sites, so I can’t help it (on my portfolio). It’s practically half my blogging life there. Lawlz.
I used to have a What Not To Say category, but then I realized it either made me sound conceited or it wasn’t really used that often (all in all, twice), so I scrapped that. I also used to have a Style category, but then I realized I never posted anything style-related, and when I tried to do so, I’d end up being, you know, blonde about it - “omgah look at these shoesies!!! HOW CUH-YUTE!”. That quickly died as well.
after reading this, I realized I need to update my category list
all you listed in AWESOME ONES..are really awesome…others …funny
Makes me want to hop back into public blogging, just so I can have wicked categories!
Awesome post.
I’ve been meaning to redo my categories for a long time now, and I want to take away more than I want to add - less is more, right? Or at least renaming the boring ones.
I read a blog where there was a “mental jerking” category. It was an Italian blog, so I’m guessing that something got lost in translation.
The Wordless Wednesdays is a pretty good idea. I ought to try it. For variety’s sake.
Some of these are really cool! I might end up using some, if you don’t mind?
hahaha…
Letters to the stupid is cool. I actually thought I’d try it, but eh, I’m not really that bold. I’ll keep in my personal written journal. bwahaha.
I’ll try Wordless Wednesdays
[…] I hope this post will help you with that. I will apply most of it here. […]
Yup. My blog categories officially FAIL.