Why do we blog?
What inspires a person to put his life on display for all to see? Is it for fame, money, respect, recognition? Most of us have kept a diary at some point, but the thought of photocopying personal entries and stapling them up on notice boards around the city is unsettling. Yet that is precisely what bloggers do. According to The Blog Herald in July of this year, there are more than 70 million blogs on the Internet; we are in the grip of a global phenomenon.
People have been keeping diaries for centuries, and so with the explosion of the online world, the move to keeping these diaries in digital format is a natural transition; the only different being that 840 million people (according to the Global Research Agency) have access to what gets written.
Blogs have been around for more than ten years, with early versions consisting of basic webpages that were manually updated. Today, thanks to software such as WordPress, the ability to create professional-looking, user-friendly blogs is available for even the most technologically illiterate. A few online tutorials, Google searches, and experiments are all that is needed to join the army of online diarists.
So what do these bloggers have to write about and, more to the point, why should anyone care? The subject matter for blogs is as varied as your imagination will let it be. There are blogs about everything from dogs, David Beckham, and beards, to Elvis, industrial revolutions, and rabbits. None of these topics sound much like a diary, but this is where blogs come into their own because they incorporate elements of journals, fanzines, discussion forums and news into one digestible format. People just write about whatever the hell they want, and Thailand is no exception, with both locals and farang contributing to the community.
In Thailand, blogs have become particularly prominent, partly because of the candidness with which topics can be discussed. Censorship is a tired path for discussion, but the new slant on it is that blogs offer a device through which regular people, as well as journalists, academics, writers, etc., can sound off against whatever is on their minds. Although the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology has a tendency to shut down websites left, right and center, the Internet is a difficult source to control.
Blogging has become a primary source for finding information about current affairs across the world. The military coup of September 19 highlighted the power of the blogger, as people in Thailand turned to the Internet to find out what was happening, while people outside of Thailand turned to it to get first hand reports about a news event that, for several days, was the top story on Google News, the BBC, and all the major wire services. The turning to bloggers for information suggests that people now demand more from their news; people want something more personal that reflects a desire share our thoughts and feelings with others.
Going back to my original question: What is it that drives people to put their lives on the Internet, to offer their opinions, to tell the world things that it does not ask for? Perhaps a blog is a way to be different. It gives a person a chance to air his views and establish that he is an individual and he can make a difference. It’s a way of ensuring that a person’s inner thoughts don’t go to waste.
Maybe blogging is just a hobby, something to do, a way to pass time. It’s a means to share in the same way as when you hear some juicy gossip that you just have to tell somebody. A blogger can talk about subjects nobody around him is interested in, and he might have 1,000 readers who can join in the discussion.
Some bloggers suffer from MySpace syndrome. They want to tell the world how great their lives are and how everyone else should be jealous. There’s nothing wrong this; perhaps it is human nature that drives some people to assert themselves as protagonists in the world around them. The lines between confidence, arrogance, and insecurity are terminally blurred.
I’m yet to really work out why I blog, but there is just something about it that interests me. My blog has it’s uses for networking and housing work I’ve written, but for the most part it’s just a hobby like any other.
Techno’ tags: The Internet, Blogging
I think this is a really great question. I can only say that, personally, my journal and my blog are two very different things. When I blog, even though the subject matter is often very personal, I write for an audience–to somehow entertain them, or advise them, or touch them on a topic that I and hopefully they find interesting. I know I'm in trouble, and this happens quite a lot with me, when my blog starts to become a diary and I forget my audience. The most popular blogs are never entirely selfish; they are aware of their audience and routinely cater to it. That's my opinion.
Mine started with a geek pride: how could I call myself a geek if I don't know what blogging is?
Then it turned into a convenient way to update people on what I'm up to. Instead of having to email them all the time or updating my website all the time, I just said, why don't you just read my blog where it's easily updated? I do put my emotions out there, but I do possess a good sense of self censorship to be able to open this up to coworkers and family members alike.
Then, it turns into a hobby. I'm no Shakespeare but I like to write. And here's a place for me to do what I like to do.
And finally, I started to find new blogs to read and new folks stopping by to read my stuff.
And here we are. Making and getting to know new friends all over the world.
Sometimes things just piss you off so much that you need to share them with the rest of the world. Like a bad dining experience for example. Great for a bitch fit post.
I started blogging because I felt I had something to say about this world and I wanted others to hear it. Of course, not very many people do, but recently I found out maybe I've helped more people than I thought. And in digital form, my words will be around for a long time.
Hello from Cincinnati, OH, USA.