It’s been more than two years now since i’ve started my blog. I’ve written about anything and everything, from the most mundane (what i had for lunch that day) to scandalous (exposing rather personal stuff from some of my friends =P) But two and a half years later, i’m beginning to have more doubts about this longtime hobby of mine.
I’ve realized that is has a far larger audience than i originally intended to have — the most random people find my blog through the weirdest searches (a bunch of people have commented on my politics, some have found it when they were trying to search for porn, and a whole lot of other crazy reasons). This realization has caused me to be more reserved that i would like to be. Part of why i liked blogging earlier was because I enjoyed writing, I enjoyed recording the thoughts and ideas floating about in my head and being able to go back and see how things have changed since then. In some ways, i used it as a tool for growth, a way to track how i’ve changed and a record of how i became who i am now. It’s also a tool to help me see how i need to change. at the same time, though, it’s also a release, a way to shoot off and have fun.
But blogging now feels much more self-conscious. I’m aware that i have a readership now. Although I do long to share myself with other people and feel connected to them, i am also wary of saying whatever i want because i have an audience who can and will hold me accountable. My blog is no longer as throwaway as i intended it to be: people read and respond to it, agreeing with things i say, challenging things i say, all based on the snippet of self-expression that’s made available to them.
I posted a rather cryptic entry in my blog last week or so, and some anonymous reader from Podunk, Middle of Nowhere left an appropriately mocking response to my post. I responded to his post with one of my own, in defense of bloggers everywhere who indulge in whiny responses to the daily tragedies of life. While i did think his response was pretty darned funny, i was also mildly irked that this random person had somehow based their entire knowledge of me and my blog on a single post, one written in a whiny/cryptic form that rarely appears on my blog, and felt the need to lash out. So while i was amused, i was also curious as to what his problem was.
Or maybe he was just being funny and i’m being too sensitive and taking it too seriously.
At the root of it, I feel that a most people who write in a personal journal write for themselves, not really for the purpose of entertaining anyone else. A person who reads it can’t read it the way they read the Onion, or Gawker, or any of those public blogs that serve to entertain a particular readership. A diarist who puts their journal online isn’t always doing it for the purpose of fame or attracting readers: for some, online is just an easy way to do it — no need for pen and paper, no need to remember to lug a book around. if you’re in an urban area that’s reasonably wired, you can record your thoughts practically anywhere. So gaining a readership is a little bit of an accident for some bloggers — even though it’s online, you still kind of see it as just belonging to you. and maybe, just maybe, one might harbor a tiny expression of hope that in sharing it, one might connect with someone else who feels the same way about a personal topic. We’re all here to help each other, right? Or maybe that’s just my old idealism rearing its ugly head.
It is quite apparent that an online blog is much more public — and much less ‘safe’ than that.
So, I’m just not sure anymore about this blogging business. For one thing, the juices that once flowed to give me material for my blog are slowly drying out. I’m not sure how to explain it: whether my ADD has finally caught up to me, or because i don’t feel so free with my thoughts to post them for the world to see, or because i just don’t have inspiration being so far removed from everyone and everything. , Or it’s my collegiate years slowly (and excruciatingly) coming to an end and i have less to write about. Or maybe because i’m so close to the things i want to write about that i can’t write about them at all. My world has shrunk considerably since I met Jerimy, which has been good for my overall happiness, but there are times i miss my formerly exciting life. Not that my life now isn’t exciting! It’s just that it’s not 3am runs to Monterey Park for yangchow fried rice anymore, or staying out late at a friend’s house for a LAN party, or hitting a Los Angeles bar for a very tasty Long Island iced tea, or being at a rock show and having your contact lens knocked out by overenthusiastic fans who think it’s great to mosh with someone half their size.
Or maybe it’s just a process of growing up. I wrote a paper last quarter for my linguistic anthropology class about blogging, and i asserted that personal blogging is a part of forming a social identity for oneself, and that the process frequently occurs among high school and college aged folk, who are still in the rather crucial period of establishing who they are, and seek validation and community through the online journals they keep.
So maybe i’m past the point where i seek validation for who i am because my social identity is much more fixed now. Or at least I’m at the point where i just care a lot less about the issue, since i’m much less social than i used to be. I don’t really feel a hankering need to meet new people. I don’t feel an insistent need to spend time with everyone anymore, although i still miss a lot of people who brought a lot of happiness in my life. i feel weary at the thought of having to impress new people, of caring about opinions whose presence i might well value, but feel is fairly unnecessary at this point. I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with the people I *really* want to keep in touch with…
Not to say that i’m anti-social or not interested in meeting new people at all! It’s fun to be bubbly and cheery, and frankly, it’s easier to find other bubbly and cheery folks when you are also bubbly and cheery. but i’m also thoughtful and pensive, and similarly, thoughtful personas tend to attract other thoughtful people…
anyway, i’ve gotten off track, since this post is about blogging. So my point.. what was my point… oh yes! I guess I don’t know how much longer this blogging thing will last for me. I may just keep this blog open in the future strictly for links and keep a private journal separately on my own, but it’s hard to keep two or three or five journals straight. I now have a blogger blog (several on various topics), a xanga blog, an MT blog, and now a LiveJournal blog (trying the interface just for kicks). Each has a slightly different purpose and approach, and frankly, i’m pretty sure my thoughts really aren’t that precious to be recorded multiple times through different bits of software. =P
So i dunno. It may be soon that this blog too will go dark…