Meta-Blangst
So, I'll be delivering a casual, brief guest-lecture on blogs to a colleague's third-year rhetoric class, and it occurs to me that, man, I know nothing about this place, except that sometimes it feels like a church, a brothel, a kennel, a classroom, Hell, a graffiti-covered john. Not only is my experience not necessarily your experience, but I'm not even sure what my experience is, and I can see that this post is already degenerating into blangst, the blogger's form of existential navel-peering mixed with cyberspace-gazing through the ol' word-telescope.
Can I even spin the solidarity, the solid daring, the soldering of identity that comes from excising a slice of your inner life and autopsying it onscreen? You know, that onscreen is actually kind of intriguing, this idea that maybe we're here affirming Shakespearean credo about the world as stage, and Hollywoodian (Western?) credo that nothing matters unless it's onscreen, that the only reality is a performed one. The distancing technique involved in performing personal tragedy, great and small, does seem psychologically sound. If woe is metaphorical cancer then it makes sense to cut it out, to separate yourself from it, at the very least to attach it to your online persona, the role you play in cyberspace, even if that role's the same as the one you play down here in the pit. Is identity ever not a performance? Is performance ever not identity, since you're drawing a line between you and the character you play?
Okay, what if I throw away all of my meta-blangsting and concentrate on simple, nutricious facts about my own blogging experiences. Um. I dunno. I like the access, how conversations feel global, if we define "global" as: people with enough money to own a computer, with enough education to articulate coherent-ish positions (often in a second language), with enough time to spend poking keys instead of working in sweatshops for twenty-five cents a day. Still, compared with an ordinary day on terrestrial ground, LJ offers me shitloads more diversity, even if that diversity is limited.
Actually, maybe I need to play up that diversity so I can blather on about audience and reception, and this is where you come in: if you could answer the following question, I'd be ever so grateful; I'd like to mix your responses with my own, so there's less danger that my experiences will sound homogenous, although parts of them surely are. For instance, I have a macrocosmic relationship with other bloggers: a little shy and skittish about people both inside and outside cyber-space, I'm more comfortable forming friendly acquaintanceships than deep friendships, reading and chatting with a large group. I like the polyphony of many voices at once, the glut of information, both personal and otherwise, and I like adding my voice to the mix, saying what I want, however I want to say it, with someone always there to offer advice, to debate issues, to listen openly, to share experiences, how these all contribute to ever-developing notions of self and community. (Isn't it ironic that the Bible, and by extension a good segment of Western culture, constructs vocal plurality as demonic or wicked, with the "legion" of voices, the Tower of Babel, etc., when it's so much damn fun?) Also, while I find it a bit tough to reach out, I'm not worried about others' judgement, if others will find me narcissistic or arrogant or boring or stupid; inevitably, some people will, and that's fine, because sometimes I am all of those things, same as everyone else, and because sometimes other people are just judgmental dickheads and life's too short to waste time on them.
Anyway, hopefully it goes without saying that I will NOT at any point provide a link to this entry, to my own journal, or to yours; there's some information I'd prefer the students not have, including that I'm a porn-hound. Instead, I'll cut and paste nameless sections of your writing into my notes to preserve everyone's anonymity. If you're still concerned, you can always answer anonymously.
The multi-part question: What do you gain by blogging, both as a reader and as a writer? Are there any disadvantages for you, fears or concerns that keep you quiet when your impulse is to speak?
Can I even spin the solidarity, the solid daring, the soldering of identity that comes from excising a slice of your inner life and autopsying it onscreen? You know, that onscreen is actually kind of intriguing, this idea that maybe we're here affirming Shakespearean credo about the world as stage, and Hollywoodian (Western?) credo that nothing matters unless it's onscreen, that the only reality is a performed one. The distancing technique involved in performing personal tragedy, great and small, does seem psychologically sound. If woe is metaphorical cancer then it makes sense to cut it out, to separate yourself from it, at the very least to attach it to your online persona, the role you play in cyberspace, even if that role's the same as the one you play down here in the pit. Is identity ever not a performance? Is performance ever not identity, since you're drawing a line between you and the character you play?
Okay, what if I throw away all of my meta-blangsting and concentrate on simple, nutricious facts about my own blogging experiences. Um. I dunno. I like the access, how conversations feel global, if we define "global" as: people with enough money to own a computer, with enough education to articulate coherent-ish positions (often in a second language), with enough time to spend poking keys instead of working in sweatshops for twenty-five cents a day. Still, compared with an ordinary day on terrestrial ground, LJ offers me shitloads more diversity, even if that diversity is limited.
Actually, maybe I need to play up that diversity so I can blather on about audience and reception, and this is where you come in: if you could answer the following question, I'd be ever so grateful; I'd like to mix your responses with my own, so there's less danger that my experiences will sound homogenous, although parts of them surely are. For instance, I have a macrocosmic relationship with other bloggers: a little shy and skittish about people both inside and outside cyber-space, I'm more comfortable forming friendly acquaintanceships than deep friendships, reading and chatting with a large group. I like the polyphony of many voices at once, the glut of information, both personal and otherwise, and I like adding my voice to the mix, saying what I want, however I want to say it, with someone always there to offer advice, to debate issues, to listen openly, to share experiences, how these all contribute to ever-developing notions of self and community. (Isn't it ironic that the Bible, and by extension a good segment of Western culture, constructs vocal plurality as demonic or wicked, with the "legion" of voices, the Tower of Babel, etc., when it's so much damn fun?) Also, while I find it a bit tough to reach out, I'm not worried about others' judgement, if others will find me narcissistic or arrogant or boring or stupid; inevitably, some people will, and that's fine, because sometimes I am all of those things, same as everyone else, and because sometimes other people are just judgmental dickheads and life's too short to waste time on them.
Anyway, hopefully it goes without saying that I will NOT at any point provide a link to this entry, to my own journal, or to yours; there's some information I'd prefer the students not have, including that I'm a porn-hound. Instead, I'll cut and paste nameless sections of your writing into my notes to preserve everyone's anonymity. If you're still concerned, you can always answer anonymously.
The multi-part question: What do you gain by blogging, both as a reader and as a writer? Are there any disadvantages for you, fears or concerns that keep you quiet when your impulse is to speak?