nobody has blogs
one of my profs asked today if anyone has a blog and I was the only one who put up my hand. this is the third time that's happened this year and I'm developing a bit of a complex about it because when I do everyones heads turn and they look at me like I'm this antiquated freak.
who do I think I am? why am I putting my thoughts on the Internet?
one girl asked me if I got paid to do it and I said if she meant was that how I made my living, no, and she said well then what's the point? and that bothered me.
I remember back when it was cool to blog, back when everyone had one and I was just starting to get into them because I had shitty dial-up until like '06 because I lived at my parents house and as a result doing basically anything was a huge hassle. I found out about it because my friend kira wrote a blog at manicidosyncratic.blogspot.com that she used to be obsessed with that isn't around anymore.
I started a blog because I envied how easily she seemed to talk about everything in her life. she just put it out there, boom. typed and hit 'publish' and maybe regretted it but the blog never saw that. she had connections with these equally interesting, thoughtful and crazy writers all who she communicated with all the time. she had public fights and falling-outs and flame wars and it was amazing to watch, this brilliant and beautiful girl that I knew making her mark on the blogosphere.
do we still call it that?
nobody in any of my 'communications' classes knew what it was.
that worries me.
especially because most of the blogs that I used to read that I considered to be "good blogs" have just become vehicles for promoting crap that they probably would never use in real life if someone wasn't paying them for it. I'm not saying I don't think it's okay to blog about a product you like, or an experience you were lucky enough to have comped but if that's all a blog is -just a place to advertise stuff without any actual heart, soul or thought that otherwise goes into it- is that still a blog?
or is it just a commercial with a blogger's face slapped onto it?
I think that's what has ruined blogging. nobody wants to share their lives or be frank or sad or angry or drunk or fucked up anymore because there's the possibility of getting a blinged-out necklace or a car for the weekend or a trip somewhere if you just sell your soul & your integrity off to the highest bidder a post at a time. heaven forbid that there's an actual person underneath all that jargon with something real to say.
which is what we used to want to see.
which I think is why a lot of blogs -the good blogs- have died out. been privatized or shut down because the people who give a shit about writing feel like there's no point in putting it out there because if so-and-so is going to an MTV party once a week who wants to hear about what I did on the weekend or what I thought about a movie or whatever.
I think that's why people who don't write blogs don't know about blogging except for the Jenna Marbles' of the world (which is mostly vlogging but that's a different story) which is a damn shame because it's these everyday people that should be blogging in the first place. it's their experiences that make blogging important and interesting, not what the same six people did at the same party which they all attended every weekend for the past year.
maybe it's because I came late to the party, but blogging means something different for me. which is why I still do it.
which is why I wish you did, too.
but with the attention people pay to blogs these days, I doubt you even finished reading this.
