not quite random curiosity

[ratcreature]

The object of today's curiosity is signatures added to blog and journal posts. In particular the practice I've encountered in some blogs (mostly non-fandom) to include random religious scripture excerpts at the bottom of every post, even if the blog itself has no obvious religious content or otherwise preachy slant or anything like that. I tend to find this vaguely annoying, and usually won't subscribe then, even if I otherwise might have. Case in point, just now I came across one of those "a painting a day" blogs, and the art looked nice enough, but I find signature quotes that are unrelated to the content of the post annoying more often than not in general (especially the picture sigs on some message boards, I'd actually take preachy ones over those), but these seem even more obnoxious to me.

I understand that for some faiths there exists some sort of obligation to spread their words or something like that -- I vaguely remember that from confirmation classes at least -- but does it have to be in your art blog posts? It's not like I'm about to be converted by these. So now I'm curious: Do others like/dislike this kind of thing? Are indifferent? Maybe you overlook them, like with ad-blindness? Thus a poll:

Poll #2288 religious signatures?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 40

View Respondents

What is your reaction to religious quotes as blog signatures?

View Answers

I like them.
0 (0.0%)

I like them only if they are from my religion.
0 (0.0%)

I don't mind them/just overlook them.
10 (25.0%)

I dislike them.
28 (70.0%)

Your radio buttons are oppressing me.
2 (5.0%)

Comments

[goss]

Normally, I'd say I find it a little annoying, honestly.

But then, HAHA, the last post I made is basically one big old quote from a Hindu text. OH, THE IRONY. *facepalm* LOL. I have to ask you though, did you find the content of my post any bit annoying/offensive/weird? Just curious.

Or my default icon, for that matter? I never even thought it might make anyone uncomfortable, seriously. But now I'm thinking about like if someone on my fannish flist were to have a default completely ironic-free Jesus icon, what it would be like. Weird, I guess? I don't know... Would love to get your thoughts on that.

[ratcreature]

Separate posts don't bother me at all. With your post I pretty much scrolled past it like I do with most secular poems (I am rarely interested in poetry). If someone posted posted a lot of these kinds of quotes in relation to other content I probably would not subscribe, especially if they were uncut.

Sometimes I read religion-themed posts, sometimes not, that depends on how interesting I find the specific topic and in mixed journals I generally don't mind religion in an everyday context (people talking about their holidays on the cheerier end, or say about their faith helping them with a difficult situation or stuff like that), but what bothered me about the signature files with scripture quotes in the painting blog was that they had no connection to the main post, on top of being something I'm not interested in reading.

So when pondering whether to subscribe, I weighed that the thing I'd frequently enjoy, i.e. the daily painting (I didn't like all of these either, but plenty looked quite nice), there would be always some psalm attached, that being just a short quote, I would scan and read, and not care for. It kind of would be like getting a google text ad slapped onto every post or something, or the advertising signatures some free email providers add that you have to skip past.

Icons are a bit different, because they are on a different track, so they don't trigger my intolerance for random text bits. Though actually sometimes icons with texts that are unrelated to the content of the post bother me, so I guess in your example with the Jesus icon I would see it as decorative without text, but if there was some preachy text on it I'd parse it differently. I mean, for the longest time I had a reproduction of a medieval altar image on my desk, simply because I thought he art was pretty.

I dislike kitschy religious art (especially when done badly and really serious), but that's more an aesthetic objection. Which for me can be cause to find an icon annoying enough (even if it is not offensive in some way) that I will avoid seeing that icon and thus avoid reading the poster and even their comments. I can actually think of one icon that squicks me, and I can still not really explain why I dislike it so much. So my icon reactions are somewhat idiosyncratic.

[goss]

Ah, quite insightful! That's exactly the kind of thing I was wondering about. Thanks for taking the time to indulge my curiousity. (also, HEE! appropriate icon.)