What's the deal with blogging?

[Yuri_Rage]

I find it hard to complain about blogging on an internet forum.

 

[Soulive]

I find it hard to complain about blogging on an internet forum.

My gripe is with the bloggers who derive arrogance from it. If you, for example, were blogging about your gadgets - I could understand it. You're not arrogant and the content would be substantial...

 

[jmulligan]

...a blog by some nerdlinger living in his parents' basement blogging about the latest episode of battlestart gacraptica.

Dear GOD I almost fell out of my seat laughing... THIS IS MY BROTHER! Except, he doesn't live in our parents' basement, he's 41 and getting a PhD in Battlestar Craptacula from MSU.

 

[kornkob]

Just like you seeing this thread and not moving on? I never complained about the rights of others, so don't pull things out of thin air. I guess blogging is just part of our sick society that you choose not to conform to...

A blog is not a conversation. A forum is.


At least one blog I go to is of the 'if you don't know the guy personally it is the most boring thing ever' variety. It's literally a way for a guy who moved to Australia to keep in touch with his friends back in the US.

Part of the problem with such public ways of communicating is that you can't really be sure who your audience might include and occasionally someone unintended stumbles in and starts making assumptions about the author-- like how arrogant they are that they think anyone cares.

Just because it is publicly available, doesn't mean that anyone thinks you're part of the target audience. There are stores I've seen that have things I can't believe people buy. There are art shows that have nothing that interests me. There are books I've seen that contain information or stories I can't believe anyone gives a crap about.

Doesn't make them stupid, selfish or arrogant. It tells you more about me than it does about them. It says that I'm not their target audience.


And I'm okay enough with myself to be okay with that.

 

[Rick_R]

. . .the bloggers I'm talking about that think they're celebrities because they blog. My title for this thread was used because I genuinely didn't understand the point to blogging.

You've referred to it a couple of times, but I think your idea that bloggers think they are celebrities is off, and that's where you miss the point. I suspect the vast majority of blogs are for the person blogging, a way to unload their thoughts, and they really don't care one way or another if you read it (nor if you understand the reason they write it).

Rick

 

[Soulive]

You've referred to it a couple of times, but I think your idea that bloggers think they are celebrities is off, and that's where you miss the point. I suspect the vast majority of blogs are for the person blogging, a way to unload their thoughts, and they really don't care one way or another if you read it (nor if you understand the reason they write it).

Rick

Thats fair and I admit, I didn't understand blogging originally. If these pseudo-celebrities are the minority, then I apologize to the rest of the blogosphere. I am only taking issue with the people who think blogging entitles them to something...

 

[kornkob]

Thats fair and I admit, I didn't understand blogging originally. If these pseudo-celebrities are the minority, then I apologize to the rest of the blogosphere. I am only taking issue with the people who think blogging entitles them to something...

I don't think that there are many that think it entitles them to anything.


However, they ARE entitled to blog, at least in the US. It is, in a very real way, the ultimate expression of free speech. In some ways it is the one publicly visible form of free speech left available to the common man.

 

[rdwj]

I pretty much agree with the original poster - wtf is the point?

The funniest (or should I say saddest) blog I've ever run across was penned by a guy I used to work with. He heard about some executives keeping blogs so others could learn from their experiences and what not. The problem was, of course, that he wasn't an executive. He was a middle manager whose job couldn't have been any more mind-numbing.

It was especially funny because he NEVER skipped an opportunity to advertise his blog. Just about every meeting he attended featured an embarrassing mention of a topic he covered in great detail and an offer to send the link.

Funny stuff!

 

[EvilTOJ]

I think of blogs like mining for gold. You get a lot of slag and rubble before you get to the gold, but sometimes you find some good nuggets in there. Some people have a knack for telling mundane stories in an amusing way and it actually is rather entertaining.

I blog on my myspace. It's set to private, because the things I say I want only a few other people I know to read them. A certain Plumpy McPsycho who may or may not be e-stalking me has made me a bit more cautious about what I say on the internet. What? No seriously! All other banter I either bitch about in chat or on the forums here.

I have a sister-in-law that writes these long rambling stream-of-consciousness monthly newsletter emails. OH god how I wish she would just do a blog so I could ignore them entirely. She writes about crap that not even her husband cares about! No one cares what you fed the baby two weeks ago, or what kind of shoes you were wearing!

 

[janzik]

What's unproductive is you complaining about other's rights to express themselves. Regardless of how dull, pointless, and uninteresting it is.

My analogy points to the fact that you seem incapable of "changing the channel" when you see something you don't like.

I think Ben is taking an (un)necessary flogging here. I think I understand what he is getting at. Having been around since before the boom of the web, or the web in general for that matter, I remember the BBS/Usenet days (the original message boards), before everyone had a web page. Generally then if you had a site or a BBS, to some extent, you were "important" in this "cyber" society, or at least had something remotely interesting to say. With everything as accessible as it is today, anyone can have their own web page, message board, yahoo store, blog, ebay listing, whatever, it has diluted what once was. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I'm not sure I care enough as Ben made his OP sound. Every now and then, I have those "well I was here before all of this ****" feeling, then I realize I have more important things to worry about...

 

[Bobby_M]

The web is an amazing outlet for people to feel like they belong to some kind of social group when they are otherwise introverted to the point of handicap. I can appreciate that this is theraputic to a point. I don't know that anyone claims celebrity due to a blog being published, but I'd wonder how much traffic someone's blog has to acheive before the publisher inevitably feels a sense of accomplishment (celebrity). You could say the same thing about people who post things on this forum or youtube or whatever. I can't explain exactly why I do it. I guess I get off on putting out some information with the hopes that it benefits a few people (sure that's in the context of a hobby but for some blogs it might just be a hope of entertaining someone). I also make short updates to my personal website just for the benefit of family members who like to hear what I'm up to but I'd rather not call on a weekly basis.

 

[McKBrew]

Blogs are the 21st century equivalent of a diary or journal. I've tried to start a couple blogs for the selfish reason of getting people to read them so that I could make some money from google adsense. But my life is really boring, so no one looked at my blogs. I have made a total of about 11 cents since December.

 

[Soulive]

I think Ben is taking an (un)necessary flogging here. I think I understand what he is getting at. Having been around since before the boom of the web, or the web in general for that matter, I remember the BBS/Usenet days (the original message boards), before everyone had a web page. Generally then if you had a site or a BBS, to some extent, you were "important" in this "cyber" society, or at least had something remotely interesting to say. With everything as accessible as it is today, anyone can have their own web page, message board, yahoo store, blog, ebay listing, whatever, it has diluted what once was. Is it necessarily a bad thing? I'm not sure I care enough as Ben made his OP sound. Every now and then, I have those "well I was here before all of this ****" feeling, then I realize I have more important things to worry about...

Thanks Joe, I see what you're saying. I'm definitely not raising my blood pressure over it though. There are, as you say, more important things to worry about...