Don't Judge a Blog by its Tags

With three short weeks left until the new season begins, many Reds are deciding this is the year they're going to take a stab at joining an online community dedicated to the club they love so dearly. Our Pre-Season De-Lurking revealed just how many of you have taken that first step in signing up if not yet participating, and many more are joining our fine little community daily.

But how do you decide which community is right for you? You could spend days (or even weeks) combing through a site's archives and seeing how best that site might align with your worldview of the club, but let's be real: in our short attention span world, the quickest way of figuring out the tone of a site is through its tags. In the land of meta-commentary, the tag is king.

There are over 1600 topic tags to be found in the bowels of The Liverpool Offside, and a quick spin through them reveals running themes and colour commentary that might otherwise not be best expressed in the main body of a piece, but which provide some manner of insight into the general state of your authors. Here are some favourites; have a click through and discover some old posts that might otherwise be forgotten.

Tactical Nous (7 Tags)

Jamie Carragher played 737 games in Liverpool red. That is all.

defensive crisis, defensive uncrisis, hoofing, hoofing induce ptsd, hoofing is winning, is it hoof and mouth or hoof in mouth because i can see jamie carragher doing both, welcome to hoofghanistan

Hope (7 Tags)

Let it not be said that we don't attempt to maintain a positive attitude first and foremost. In recent years this may have been more challenging than one might like, but at the end of the day we do truly believe there's a golden sky at the end of the storm. Our brand of hope might be somewhat reserved, but it's there if you dig a little bit.

a little hope is a dangerous thing, celebrate at some point, change you can believe in, everything's the best, oh well there's always next year, if you shout it hurts less, if you squint hard enough you can see success

Despair (22 Tags)

Naturally, many are much more familiar with Hope's evil twin, Despair. We love a good moan, to put it mildly.

crying, deferring joy since nineteen dickety-two, everything's the worst, fun and failure start the same way, humanity is doomed, i want to die, i'm so excited i'm so excited i'm so scared, it's the end of the world as we know it, life sucks and then you die, look happy it's the end of the world, losing hope, misery loves company, panic at the anfield, possible apocalypse, the futility of life, the sky is always falling, things that might make you cry, things that will end in tears, this will end in tears, this will probably end badly, time to start cutting again, worst possible outcome

Drinking (53 Tags)

It should come as no surprise to any Liverpool fan that we consider ourselves to be friends of Dionysus, but the sheer volume of tags — FIFTY-THREE — related to the age old tradition of drinking surprised even me.

alcohol mother fuckers, all your liver are belong to us, bleach mixes well with gin right, causes of alcoholism, disappointment tastes like whiskey, don't really drink unless you want to, don't stop drinking yet, don't watch unless you're drunk, driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink, drink until it's over, drink until the hurting stops, drink up, drink your feelings away, drinking for the forces of good, drinking is always an option, drinking is our livelihood, drinking your feelings, excuses to drink, excuses to drink together, glass half full of bleach, guinness, i can't feel my face, i have become comfortably number, i'm drunk, i'm having liver pains, it's too late for your liver, just keep drinking and never stop, keep drinking, keep drinking dummy, like you need a reason to drink, misery loves alcohol, my hangover says hello, my liver can't stand blogging, pepe reina's probably drunk right now, positive reasons for alcoholism, problem drinking, problem solving drinking, reasons for alcoholism, reasons for drinking, say goodbye to your liver, signs you haven't had enough to drink, st. patrick's day is a time for booze, tasty spleen, the more you drink the more you know, things that make you want to drink, things you believe when you're drunk, thinks that make your liver hurt, times i should have kept drinking, times i should have stopped drinking, victory drinking, woah being sober is a real bummer, you should be drunk already, your liver might recover

What. (6 Tags)

Context is largely irrelevant.

hitler used axe body spray, i killed and ate a panda, i'm taking up cannibalism, it tastes like chicken, lollipop guild, sharks and jupiter conspiring against humanity

So there you have it. We love our tags. And, of course, there is one final one that might best fit this post: running out of ideas.