BloggingOn 1.1


Of all the ways to get from idea to action... I'm finally taking a swing at this whole "blog thing". This semester i'm taking a course called "blogging on", so let's just call this "assignment 1". The desire to start a blog has been kicking around for a bit nonetheless. I actually started a blog on livejournal last year that never got off the ground. It was supposed to be a way to track my (mis)adventures in India last fall, but I vastly over-estimated the ease of internet access in the out-of-the-way locales I spent my time. When I got back from Inja, the idea was still festering. At that time it was a little more tech-savvy and creative (a regular audio/visual blog w/ mp3 field recordings and digital photos from daily life), but like most of my best ideas, it never became much more than an idea. So, at any rate, here we are again...

My exposure to blogs thus far has not been all that inspiring. Perhaps that's why i've been reluctant. The blogs i've seen have been little more than outlets for bitching-and-moaning at worst, and attempts to showcase one’s cleverest drivel at best. The blogs I’ve seen have also been light on outside traffic, so they seemed to be the virtual equivalent of opening the door to a dark empty room, shouting nonsensically for a bit, and then shutting the door again.

I’m more than willing to have my perspective changed/expanded on those points.

Here’s something more substantial though… blogs share a trait that is common to most current media: their success depends on approval that is anything but local and is often highly impersonal. That is to say, self-expression used to be a fairly local and community based affair. Just as your town might have its local grocery store, hardware store, library, bank, etc. it might also have it’s own local brass quintet, string quartet, garage rock band, etc. Now you have your own local wildoats, homedepot, borders and bankofamerica. Forget the brass quintet and the string quartet, the local garage band is Coldplay. Maybe you had a community theatre, but there’s not really time for that now because we can’t miss the last episode of sixfeetunder or theapprentice.

While blogs may present the illusion that they are engaging in a direct, personal, one-on-one dialogue, the connection is made with persons who are most likely not a part of your local community, on a(n arguably) shallow level (opinions meeting in cyberspace… reminds me of highfidelity: you’re not what you own, you are what you like). Lifehouse, anyone?

“Ok, ok… let’s take it from here…”

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