Blogging as a Real Disguise
A few folks have already touched on the interesting facet of blogging that seems to encourage people to publicly post what they might have kept private in hand-written diary or journal form.
If you consider that the people who would most likely read your diary are people who not only know you well, but have a vested interest in learning your "secrets", the importance of written-journal privacy makes more sense that blog privacy. In other words, with the exception of a number of friends that you KNOW will access your blog, the "public" has no previous vested interest in your "deep thoughts" and is already inclined to read your narrativization of yourself as sincere.
Ok, I need to untangle this.
1. I don't actually believe that people are more inclined to put their most "private" thoughts, feelings and events from their life onto blogs. There are some things that I've written in journals that I'd still never post to a blog.
2. Nobody can "steal" your blog to read the stuff that you don't want them to see, so like it or not, the blogger still posts info that they WANT other people to see and read and absorb, etc.
3. The beauty of blogging is that you create a virtual self, and the dimensions of that self are entirely up to you.
consciously or unconsciously, you author a character who is assumed to represent you "faithfully", but really, what the hell does that mean, because performance is all we've got.
4. Help! Help! The self is fragmented!
5. So, what I am REALLY interested in knowing is how the medium of the blog encourages the construction of certainly types of "characters" and discourages other types. The blog identity is safer than the journal identity, because, especially with respect to people you don't know, there is never any real danger of "outing" the wizard behind the curtain.
6. Since bloggers often DO have personal, extra-webular knowledge of their most interested audience, do they craft their blogger id's around what they assume others already know and expect about their "wizard" character? In other words, what constraints and what intent do I apply to my postings and blog design when I expect most of my readers to be friends for whom I have already performed a "real world" identity?
PS-Maybe the reason all the REALLY dirty, vicious, sensitive, shocking and beautiful stuff goes into the private diary is because we secretly WANT it to be stolen?
If you consider that the people who would most likely read your diary are people who not only know you well, but have a vested interest in learning your "secrets", the importance of written-journal privacy makes more sense that blog privacy. In other words, with the exception of a number of friends that you KNOW will access your blog, the "public" has no previous vested interest in your "deep thoughts" and is already inclined to read your narrativization of yourself as sincere.
Ok, I need to untangle this.
1. I don't actually believe that people are more inclined to put their most "private" thoughts, feelings and events from their life onto blogs. There are some things that I've written in journals that I'd still never post to a blog.
2. Nobody can "steal" your blog to read the stuff that you don't want them to see, so like it or not, the blogger still posts info that they WANT other people to see and read and absorb, etc.
3. The beauty of blogging is that you create a virtual self, and the dimensions of that self are entirely up to you.
consciously or unconsciously, you author a character who is assumed to represent you "faithfully", but really, what the hell does that mean, because performance is all we've got.
4. Help! Help! The self is fragmented!
5. So, what I am REALLY interested in knowing is how the medium of the blog encourages the construction of certainly types of "characters" and discourages other types. The blog identity is safer than the journal identity, because, especially with respect to people you don't know, there is never any real danger of "outing" the wizard behind the curtain.
6. Since bloggers often DO have personal, extra-webular knowledge of their most interested audience, do they craft their blogger id's around what they assume others already know and expect about their "wizard" character? In other words, what constraints and what intent do I apply to my postings and blog design when I expect most of my readers to be friends for whom I have already performed a "real world" identity?
PS-Maybe the reason all the REALLY dirty, vicious, sensitive, shocking and beautiful stuff goes into the private diary is because we secretly WANT it to be stolen?
posted by Manitoba Erratic at 3:42 p.m.
2 Comments:
i think the blog is more indicative of a general public shift towards the disintegration of notions of privacy. in a digital age where the mass media of the Internet has overshadowed even television and subsumed all other media to itself (as Internet content) and brought about the sense of the "global village" that mcluhan predicated, and where invasive reality shows are the norm and the public is USED to the panopticon, the blog is the natural evolution of the private diary.
what we all need and are gradually acquiring are webcams so that people can really spy on us. it's the next step, i'm sure. self-surveillance and voyeuristic urge all in one - for govenments, for military machines, for perverts, for drama queens, for the average joe. for the dogs. blah blah blog.
not that what people do in front of a camera is any clearer an indicator of anything (except for what they are willing to do on camera). everyone wants their privates in public, while the private is never revealed.
take my photo, for example. most people will think it's a joke, but it's the truth. this is how i look. nibble nibble. those who have seen other photos, or who have seen me in person, have only ever seen me in clever disguise. put on a pair of glasses and nobody recognizes you.
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