Sidenote: So when blogger blogs about blogging it is a bit like a an attorney suing is own law firm. Okay well, not really. More like a portrait painter painting his own portrait? Okay wait that doesn’t work either. Nevermind. The point is it is kinda LAME and I am well aware how annoying it can become to readers. And yet? Here I go…
I am fascinated by the blogging explosion.
I read articles weekly on the ‘blogging phenomenon’ and about FTC regulations, advertisers and the state of journalism. I know that people are blaming bloggers for giving it away for free as the death of the newspaper industry. I know that 8 million people are blogging and I know that more people are reading blogs for their online content than anything else.
But I have yet to read an article offering insights into WHY we blog.
What got us to this point?
What got us so desperate for human interaction that we are willing to literally turn ourselves into open books?
I speak from personal experience when I can say I went many years feeling…..UNHEARD. I wanted an outlet to express my feelings, opinions and be funny just everyday observations. Something that might have been acquired at the weekly quilting bee or book club. Something men might have be able to engage in at the bar after work when men were still allowed to do such a thing without suffering the wrath of angry wives at home.
Fast forward to 2009. Are you there yet? Okay good. In 2009 there are so few places to get HUMAN interaction; To make eye-contact. To be HEARD. Because of our pursuit of business, desire for efficiency and the growing guilt about spending every waking moment with our children- our generation has been left without a soapbox. Left with days void of personal interaction. We no longer haggle with the butcher at our daily trips to the store, we rarely converse with our neighbors from our front porches about the weather and there isn’t even a ‘water cooler’ in most offices anymore. So what is a generation to do?
We turned to the internet. People started one way conversations. Just writing their ‘online diaries’ with their thoughts, their opinions and their feelings and putting it on the internet for all the world to see. It was cathartic and therapeutic. And it was FUN. Then came the advent of blog comments and the one way conversation became a REAL, albeit written, conversation. Now we were on to something. Is it any surprise blogging grew like wildfire? It quenched a very real human thirst for interaction with our fellow man. To debate current events, talk about latest trends and above it all…to BE HEARD.
Quite obviously I am grateful for this development. As I sit and type this post, I have to ask myself- if I had no blog, who would I be telling these thoughts too? My husband when he comes home from work exhausted? My kids who are too young to really care? and I come up empty handed. No one I know, in my real-life world would have the time or the interest to sit and listen to me about such a thing.
And so I BLOG.
For you.
And really….. for me.
Thanks for listening.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve used the analogy before that blogs are the 21st century’s back fence. You know, where the women would gather, hanging out the wash, complain about their husband’s snoring, who Suzy was dating, and the fact that grass stains wouldn’t come out of Bobby’s jeans? ¥ep. YOu all are my neighbors, just a little farther away.
Where was this picture taken?
I have such close friends from blogging that I’ve only met once or twice!
Love that first photo.
i hear you marcy! blogging feels like a healthy way to let out junk rattling around in the head without feeling boorish…love that second photo!
I love to read but my kids are going to be 2 and 4 next month so I have very little time to sit and read anymore, without falling asleep. When I read a blog entry it is just long enough to satisfy my need to fill my thoughts with something other than work, kids, laundry, blah blah blah. Plus I do think it fills the void that I have at least, of not being able to hang with my girlfriends because of the chitlin’s. Love them, but they are a social buzz kill.
PLUS – I have a slight obsession of people watching…so yeah, I’m watchin’ you!
Because I have an innate need to create, even if it is the literary equivalent of motel art.
Because I have only three close friends, all of whom live quite far away.
Because I have very few casual friends because of time, distance, time, lifestyles, and time.
Because there is a freshness date on smart aleck comments, and I am all about freshness.
Because how else would I meet people who value what I value, who think the same strange thoughts that I think, whose eyes don’t glaze over (too much) when I pop out another weird one?
Community is where you make it, and I’ve made mine. :)
Thank you for this! THANK YOU! Very brilliantly written and articulated!
Once again Marcy, you rock!