Pay No Attention to the Blogger Behind the Curtain

CEOs, celebrities, government officials... everyone's got a blog, a MySpace page, and thousands of "friends," right? Well, those "friends" may be mere lackeys in the employ of those too busy for their virtual lives. According the BBC News, a new category of job, a sort of blogger/networker/ghostwriter, is rapidly on the rise.

The category could now comprise "hundreds of people, paid to be other people." It makes a good amount of sense. Who has time to write multiple missives to the masses every day, while keeping his Facebook page fresh and responding to comments on his blog? For busy professionals and celebs that can't be bothered, paying the couple of thousand dollars a month it takes to have someone do all this for you certainly makes sense.

Artifice is nothing new on the internet, where it's famously been said that nobody knows you're a dog. But turning faux personas into a real business is something new entirely. If I was more industrious, I'd figure out how to make a business out of this: Hiring writers en masse to post on behalf of those who don't have to create their own content day in and day out.

I suppose this shouldn't be at all surprising, but at the very least, it does explain so many of the blogs that you stumble upon, doesn't it?

LINK: Are my online friends for real?