Wherein I ponder the changing nature of the blog. . .
Remember blogging? Like what the word used to mean? Before I you start painting me with the "curmudgeon who can't handle change" brush, bear with me.
When I first started this blog close to TEN YEARS AGO, it had one simple purpose and an imagined audience of one. Martino was in London for a few months. I was in Sarasota, Florida. Of course we could stay in touch by writing and via email, and if we were feeling loose with money, we could talk on the phone. But somehow, this new blogging thing seemed just right. I could write anytime about what was happening and he could read it. It felt more modern and less lonely than daily late night emails. Blogging then felt like some odd marriage of public and private. I used code names for everyone in my life then--sometimes thinly veiled code names, but still--and everyone thought this was hilarious. Even so, I wrote more personally and directly than I think you can anymore.
One of the first blogs that I got obsessed with wasavphibes. She was the friend of a friend, and I remember reading her liveblogging a crazy come-on to a pizza delivery guy and it just all felt so personal and so close. I remember when Martino and I were living in Tallahassee, and one night we trolled around lj and found some teacher's deeply personal blog about his special ed students. Reading it felt like a shockingly frank conversation with a friend. It wasn't like eavesdropping, because the nature of the blog was direct address. The imagined audience felt like US. The idea that you were so easily and instantly searchable, so blatantly exposed on the Internet, hadn't yet taken hold.
Then lj became this kind of club, and there was the blog circle made up of a handful of friends who I knew in real life from various places and a few friends that existed only online. Lj became this conversation, like a nightcap at your local.
I even kept a neighborhood gossip blog for a while for my old Baltimore neighborhood. I loved that. It somehow still retained the personal within its public form. Right before I moved and shut that blog down, I got a couple of emails from businesses looking to "sponsor" blogs, i.e. advertise. I remember thinking, "This is silly. They can't be serious. I'm just talking to my neighbors. Why would anyone want to pay me to do that?"
Then, most of those friends' blogs died off. I soldiered on here and there--particularly after my initial move to New Jersey and the shocking first year of becoming a mother and leaving my vibrant career and all of my friends behind.
Now, blogging feels like a strange kind of journalism, where it's all about writing for strangers or this imagined audience of strangers who might share common interests that you can monetize. I realize now that all the blogs I read have sponsors (i.e. advertisers) and/or giveaways (i.e. sponsors); they all seem to focus on these how-to posts like the lady mags; and they mostly seem to be about showcasing some kind of magical, beautiful life that if just followed their guides within their posts, I could be living too! (And a lot of them are Mormon moms, but that phenomenon is for another post.) Every blog has to have a theme now too: making dinner, DIY fashion, repurposing theatre, etc.
I can barely imagine posting something this simple and raw and honest today. It amazes me to think that talking about my l ast minute plans to get tater tots on Valentine's Day could generate conversation--so could a mention of The Muppets. I guess all the important robot discussions are happening on Facebook now?
And I get Facebook, but I miss long-form thinking. I miss the sort of intimate writing circle amongst friends that blogging used to be, and I'm trying to decide if I should just can it entirely or dive back in by just being myself.
When I first started this blog close to TEN YEARS AGO, it had one simple purpose and an imagined audience of one. Martino was in London for a few months. I was in Sarasota, Florida. Of course we could stay in touch by writing and via email, and if we were feeling loose with money, we could talk on the phone. But somehow, this new blogging thing seemed just right. I could write anytime about what was happening and he could read it. It felt more modern and less lonely than daily late night emails. Blogging then felt like some odd marriage of public and private. I used code names for everyone in my life then--sometimes thinly veiled code names, but still--and everyone thought this was hilarious. Even so, I wrote more personally and directly than I think you can anymore.
One of the first blogs that I got obsessed with wasavphibes. She was the friend of a friend, and I remember reading her liveblogging a crazy come-on to a pizza delivery guy and it just all felt so personal and so close. I remember when Martino and I were living in Tallahassee, and one night we trolled around lj and found some teacher's deeply personal blog about his special ed students. Reading it felt like a shockingly frank conversation with a friend. It wasn't like eavesdropping, because the nature of the blog was direct address. The imagined audience felt like US. The idea that you were so easily and instantly searchable, so blatantly exposed on the Internet, hadn't yet taken hold.
Then lj became this kind of club, and there was the blog circle made up of a handful of friends who I knew in real life from various places and a few friends that existed only online. Lj became this conversation, like a nightcap at your local.
I even kept a neighborhood gossip blog for a while for my old Baltimore neighborhood. I loved that. It somehow still retained the personal within its public form. Right before I moved and shut that blog down, I got a couple of emails from businesses looking to "sponsor" blogs, i.e. advertise. I remember thinking, "This is silly. They can't be serious. I'm just talking to my neighbors. Why would anyone want to pay me to do that?"
Then, most of those friends' blogs died off. I soldiered on here and there--particularly after my initial move to New Jersey and the shocking first year of becoming a mother and leaving my vibrant career and all of my friends behind.
Now, blogging feels like a strange kind of journalism, where it's all about writing for strangers or this imagined audience of strangers who might share common interests that you can monetize. I realize now that all the blogs I read have sponsors (i.e. advertisers) and/or giveaways (i.e. sponsors); they all seem to focus on these how-to posts like the lady mags; and they mostly seem to be about showcasing some kind of magical, beautiful life that if just followed their guides within their posts, I could be living too! (And a lot of them are Mormon moms, but that phenomenon is for another post.) Every blog has to have a theme now too: making dinner, DIY fashion, repurposing theatre, etc.
I can barely imagine posting something this simple and raw and honest today. It amazes me to think that talking about my l ast minute plans to get tater tots on Valentine's Day could generate conversation--so could a mention of The Muppets. I guess all the important robot discussions are happening on Facebook now?
And I get Facebook, but I miss long-form thinking. I miss the sort of intimate writing circle amongst friends that blogging used to be, and I'm trying to decide if I should just can it entirely or dive back in by just being myself.