Blogging: It's Personal

Between reading and watching Sullivan, class discussion, and the Economist I have had blog on the brain for an entire week!

I found Sullivan's article about his blog to be insightful. The reasons why he started his own website, and then blog, are for the same reasons that most people start their own personal blogs. This is self evident after reading the Economist article "It's the Links, stupid" which illustrates just how many people are blogging these days, including myself. While I have never think of myself as being particularly tech-savvy, the article did remind me that my teenage adventures into the world of Teen Open Diary, and then later,livejournal, were all a form of blogging. Though, unlike Sullivan I never had wide-spread circulation through out the internet, and instead limited my posts to a very small community of friends.

This, according to the Dunbar Number in "It's the Links, Stupid" would make me a very normal blogger/lj user as the "average number of readers is seven," about what I had back in high school (the same year the article was published). In the video "Your Brain on Blog" Andrew Sullivan seems to have the opposite problem, speaking candidly of readers reactions to him not posting on a regular basis and his efforts to constantly post on his blog. I really liked the anecdote of himpre -programming posts so that he could go out to lunch. And, as far as I can tell, that's consistent with other prominent bloggers. For example, when Perez Hilton visited the Martha Stewart show he said that he posted between 60-70 items daily, more than a hard days work!

After reading these accounts of blogging, part of me feels like a blog addict—one of those people that Sullivan says constantly need new blog posts. As a blog reader, once I find a blog I like I refresh it at least a few times a day. However, the flip side of that is that the author becomes empowered by the blog. And, while this is the exception and not the rule, successful blogs can garner advertisements that can turn journalists into professional bloggers.

Plus, I liked Sullivan's concept of the blog as a new kind of text that creates a genuine moment frozen in time and history. Also, as someone who has blogged before, I can relate to his feeling a support network around him, from friends and family that comment on his blog. However, my one critique of his article is that I do not think that comments on blogs are always constructive or necessarily participatory, but can instead (and I would argue in many instances) be extremely destructive and non-participatory, meaning that while someone may be commenting on the article, usually they are responding to its stupidity, or the stupidity of another person commenting. In the last issue of Bitch magazine, this concept is explored in the article "The lowest Comment Denominator" which explores the advent of web commenting. Examples of this type of thoughtless, destructive criticism can be viewed on just about any website, fromperezhilton .com to the online version of the New York Times, meaning that this phenomena is not just confined to gossip blogs, but infects theinternet as a whole.

Thus, while Sullivan argues that blog posts are in-the-moment, and that's what makes them valuable, I would argue that to a certain extent that is what also makes them, and theircommenters , not valuable at all. Because there are so many posts, and an exponential number of comments to go with these posts, the dialogue created is often not meaningful or thought provoking, but rather filled with people proclaiming they're "first" or something written "is stupid". In this way, while blogs have their place as a new kind of text, they are not necessarily superior than more traditional types of media.

That being said, the articles and the video have made me think about blogging a lot, and as I begin to blog more, I'm sure I'll find out more (and maybe relate to the articles more). Until then, I'm signing off - SSS